Open Build Service Brings Website Integration

We're proud to announce that the Open Build Service, a system to 
collaboratively build and easily distribute packages for a wide variety of 
operating systems and platforms, has introduced the ability to integrate the 
intelligent OBS 'download package' page into websites. This is useful for 
projects who want to offer their users easy access to downloads for a wide 
variety of Linux (and non-linux) systems. Moreover, the Open Build Service 
2.3 Release Candidate is out and the final release is near.

Integration in Websites
The Open Build Service installation provided by openSUSE keeps growing. The 
number of packages is now well over 170.000, with more than 32.000 
developers using build.opensuse.org either for personal use, to provide 
packages for one or more Linux distributions publicly or to contribute to 
openSUSE. Many projects depend on the public OBS or their own, internal Open 
Build Service to get software to their users. Right now, developers need to 
move the packages from OBS to a place where they are easy to download, or 
point users to the repository. The project page on OBS usually provides a 
'download' button but this page is clearly not designed for end users.

We decided to do better and now provide a download page which can be 
properly integrated in any website. It offers several layers of integration, 
starting with a convenient multi-distribution download page one can link to 
or an iframe which can be included in a web page; to PHP and html objects 
one can use to really offer deep integration. New is also the option to also 
provide Appliances this way so those building OS images on OBS can provide 
access to them directly via the same interface.

In Action
The full functionality including the downloading of Appliances can be seen 
on the openbuildservice.org website which got a major redesign. David Rosca 
from the Qupzilla project, who was the first external developer to integrate 
OBS into his website, noted that it took only minutes to implement and told 
us: "It saves interested users an extra click to install the application and 
looks better at the same time."

Upcoming OBS 2.3 release
Besides this new functionality which is already available on 
build.opensuse.org, the upcoming OBS 2.3 release comes with many new 
features. The 2.3 release candidate was recently made available and the final 
release is expected within 2-3 weeks.

The main features for the 2.3 release of the Open Build Service are the 
introduction of full product maintenance handling in OBS, offering all the 
tools required for the maintanance of a full Linux distribution. A second 
major feature is the ability to set projects upon creation to be private, 
closing off source and binary access from anyone not part of the project. The 
2.3 release also fixes a vulnerability for XSS attacks.

Other new features including tracking of bugzilla or CVE issues, web 
interface improvements, API improvements and a new dispatcher improving the 
build times for crucial projects.

About the Open Build Service
The Open Build Service (OBS) is a generic system to build and distribute 
binary packages from sources in an automatic, consistent and reproducible 
way. It can release packages as well as updates, add-ons, appliances and 
entire distributions for a wide range of operating systems and hardware 
architectures. The OBS, through it’s project model, has collaboration build 
in and will help users to harness the power of the open source development 
model. Learn more at www.open-build-service.org

About openSUSE
The openSUSE project is a worldwide effort that promotes the use of Linux 
everywhere. openSUSE creates one of the world's most popular Linux 
distributions, working together in an open, transparent and friendly manner 
as part of the worldwide Free and Open Source Software community. For more 
information, visit www.opensuse.org

Links:
The Open Build Service:
http://www.open-build-service.org
How-to on integrating the download page in a site
basic: http://software.opensuse.org/download/doc
Extensive: http://doc.opensuse.org/products/draft/OBS/obs-best-
practices_draft/cha.obs.best-practices.upstream.html#id364653
Example of a download page on OBS:
http://software.opensuse.org/download/package?project=ope...
integration in download site of Qupzilla:
http://qupzilla.com/download
OBS 2.3 RC1 release announcement:
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-buildservice/2012-03/m...
OBS 2.3 release notes:
https://github.com/openSUSE/open-build-service/blob/2.3/R...