Build Service Integrates with openDesktop.org to reach 150,000 contributors

by Joe Brockmeier posted on 17th Dec 2009

Today Frank Karlitschek, maintainer of the openDesktop.org network, announced that the first step of integration with openDesktop.org is complete. Effective immediately, developers can add their Build Service ID to projects on openDesktop.org, and all packages available from the Open Build Service will automatically show up on the openDesktop.org pages.

The openDesktop.org sites include openDesktop.org, KDE-Apps.org, GNOME-Apps.org, KDE-Look.org, and GNOME-Look.org. The openDesktop.org network reaches more than 150,000 registered contributors, and has more than 90 million page views per month from 2 million unique visitors. This is an excellent opportunity for the Open Build Service to reach a much wider audience and deliver on the goal of providing packages for all major Linux distributions.

The integration solves a problem for openDesktop.org users in that applications on openDesktop.org are often available only as source or binaries for a limited number of Linux distributions. We want to worktogether with openDesktop.org and other organizations to make the Open Build Service a tool to build and provide packages for all major Linux distributions.

The work between openDesktop.org and the openSUSE Project has been in progress for several months. Plans are also in the works to allow upload directly from Qt-Create or KDevelop to the Open Build Service and KDE-Apps.org.