Open Build Service by openSUSE

Is this openSUSE only, or can you build packages for other distributions with this service? It's hard to tell from their documentation or website.

EDIT: The openSUSE instance [0] says:

The openSUSE Build Service is the public instance of the Open Build Service (OBS) used for development of the openSUSE distribution and to offer packages from same source for Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise and other distributions..

[0] - https://build.opensuse.org/

So it appears they do support different distributions, although I can't seem to find download links or examples.

I use OBS to provide Linux packages of the latest version of my project for multiple Linux distros. Because of the release cycle Linux distros usually come with older versions of the program, so when the user reports a problem it's handy to have an easy way for her to update and try the latest version. (Compilation from sources is not an easy way)

I spent many hours to write a spec file portable enough to build on OpenSuse/Fedora/RHEL/Mandriva (there was Mandriva Linux at that time), and to prepare debian/ directory, but after this initial work updating spec/debian and triggering builds for a new release takes only a few minutes.

I really appreciate that SUSE is providing resources to build packages for other distros. This is in contrast with Canonical refusing to build packages for Debian in PPA[1]:

"PPA builds consume a great deal of resources and it's difficult justify spending that amount of money as a gift, especially if the net effect would be to encourage people to build packages which don't necessarily work with Ubuntu."

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/+bug/188564

most complete example is osc, which is command-line tool for working with OBS:

http://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=openSUSE:...

or direct file access:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tools/

OBS is a fantastic service. As other comments have pointed out, you can build for other distributions as well, but as an openSUSE user, I use it for quite a bit.

Some of the packages I would otherwise compile locally but that don't need to be in the distribution itself, I simply compile on there, add my personal repository to my repository list and they will stay in sync with other build requirements etc. On top of that, this allows me to have them in the package manager proper, and I can easily build my packages for multiple openSUSE versions, usually current (13.1), Tumbleweed and Factory.

OBS also makes it really easy to fork packages to fix something and/or apply patches, and depending on what kind of changes one made, it also includes pull requests. That way you can fix or extend a piece of software via forking, and if it works and might be useful for everybody, you can send your changes to the maintainer, who can integrate it if they find them adequate. This makes it quite a bit easier and lowers the barriers of helping "upstream" with improving the whole distribution.

That's a very selective quote. You failed to quote the very next sentence: "But we can see the benefits of encouraging developers to factor both Ubuntu and Debian into their packaging efforts, so we're open to that."

> This is in contrast with Canonical refusing to build packages for Debian...

False, as demonstrated by reading the full quote. There is no refusal there, just resource allocation in sorting out the infrastructure.