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=openSUSE:Tools&package... integration in download site of Qupzilla: http://qupzilla.com/download OBS 2.3 RC1 release announcement: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-buildservice/2012-03/msg00178.html OBS 2.3 release notes: https://github.com/openSUSE/open-build-service/blob/2.3/ReleaseNotes-2.3