How to release our project as open source

[kapmsd]

Hi guys.
My team of 3 members have completed the project "System Restore in Linux" with good insights obtained via this forum.So far we have developed for Ubuntu alone.
We used C coding and Qt for GUI.
We want to release this as an open source.
We would like our software to be included in the system repositories.
How to do it?

[coopstah13]

you'd have to create a publicly accessible repository of all your code, sourceforge is a pretty good place for that sort of thing

you would have to create some sort of ubuntu-ppa in order to get it into the repos, but they won't add it immediately, you would probably have to gain some support and following by the community first

[hatebreed]

good work cap! I'm glad your trying to contribute to the open source community. you could drop an email to the ubuntu team and with a link to your software and see if you can't expidite the process.

[Cabhan]

To begin with, you need to license your work as open-source. This requires using an open-source license. The most popular is the GNU General Public License (GPL), in particular version 2. Instructions on using it are available at:
How to use GNU licenses for your own software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)

There are many other open-source licenses available, however: the LGPL is very popular for libraries, and the BSD license is popular because it is not "viral". But for most non-library software, the GPL is the most common open-source license.

Once your code is so licensed, you can begin by making it available. As coopstah13 said, sourceforge is a very popular website for hosting open-source code and making it easily downloadable. You can begin by making it available in source code form, installable with the usual ./configure, make, make install sequence.

Once your code is in a good state, you can also provide distribution packages. You can provide a .deb file without being in the official repositories. Instructions are available at:
Debian New Maintainers' Guide

Finally, if you want to submit it to a distribution for inclusion in the official repositories, well, this obviously differs by distro. However, for Ubuntu for instance, you can check:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages

I hope this helps! I'll look forward to seeing your software in my repos soon .

[Lakshmipathi]

Hi guys.
My team of 3 members have completed the project "System Restore in Linux" with good insights obtained via this forum.So far we have developed for Ubuntu alone.
We used C coding and Qt for GUI.
We want to release this as an open source.
We would like our software to be included in the system repositories.
How to do it?

Cool Congrats !! As others said , sourceforge.net is the best place to upload your software. Make sure ,It has GNU GPL copyright along with source code and binary .
You can download any opensource project and check out its layout -- Like README,INSTALL,COPYING etc

Don't forget freshmeat.net , after uploading your project in Sourceforge , make an entry in freshmeat.net . And also checkout directories
Add Listing to Applications | Linux.com
http://dir.linuxforums.org/

Also drop a mail (just one mail - don't spam it ) in linux-user groups / ubuntu groups


HTH

[kpbotbot]

How I wish I could code

Still in college, 2nd year in ECE. After that I'll study again and take up computer science, and I'll devote all my free time developing stuff for Linux. Thats a promise