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Launchpad Help > Code

Overview

Using Launchpad, you can publish Bazaar branches of your code and, optionally, associate them with projects. You can also mirror or watch Bazaar branches that are hosted elsewhere on the internet and even import Subversion and CVS repositories into Bazaar branches.

Thousands of people have done that already, meaning that Launchpad has a huge directory of branches of code. You could think of it as a code supermarket because it's so easy to browse and get hold of the code you want.

Over the next few pages, we'll look at:

• downloading and working with code that's hosted on Launchpad
• hosting your code on Launchpad
• working with a team on the same branch of code
• proposing code merges and conducting code reviews
• importing code from CVS and Subversion repositories

New to Bazaar or distributed version control?

If you're already familiar with Subversion or CVS, it's worth noting that Bazaar is a distributed version control system.

So, with Bazaar, your workflow no longer looks like this:

1. jump through hoops to get read/write permission for a central code repository
2. check code out of that central repository
3. hack, hack, hack
4. commit code back to the central repository

Instead, Bazaar lets anyone create their own branch - with full version control - of any other Bazaar branch. That gives everyone much more freedom and tears down the barriers to new and drive-by contributors. When you - as the owner of the main-line branch - want to use something that appears in another branch of your project, Bazaar makes it supremely easy to merge their work into the main-line.

Also see:

• Bazaar in five minutes to learn the basics of Bazaar and set it up on your local machine

• and Ian Clatworthy's excellent Distributed version control systems - why and how (PDF).

You may also find it useful to read the Bazaar project's guide to using Bazaar together with Launchpad.

Where Launchpad comes in

If you're new to distributed version control, this way of working may seem a little chaotic. Launchpad helps tie everything together by:

• providing one place to find and download all code associated with a project, whether they're official lines of development or branches owned by anyone else
• giving you free hosting for your code

• linking branches of code to the bug reports and blueprints that they address

• offering public code review for proposed branch merges.

Next step

Let's start by finding and downloading code using Launchpad and Bazaar.