The Novell-sponsored openSuse project for Linux released openSuse Build Service 1.0 on Wednesday, providing developers with access to code repositories for the openSuse Linux distribution and making it easier for developers to contribute code.

Build Service features a collaboration system for working on Linux packages or solution stacks, according to a statement from the project organizers. The new release can scale to larger projects and expands the scope of Build Service to building the entire OpenSuse release. Version 1.0 marks the first major release of the service.

"This will make openSUSE development much more transparent, allow the community to more efficiently and rapidly contribute to the distribution, and expand the number of users who are participating in our project," said Adrian Schroter, project manager for openSuse Build Service, in a statement released by the project sponsors.

With this build service, developers can build packages for many Linux distributions, including openSuse, Suse, Novell's Linux Enterprise, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Hat, and Ubuntu. Upstream projects can build packages for new releases or multiple Linux distributions and offer new releases of software for older Linux distributions.

Features in Build Service 1.0 include:

• Streamlined package search for finding a package's working copy as maintained by the official packager or packaging team. Changes can be submitted against the working copy.

• Notifications, in which a submission handling and notification system has been put in place. Merges of changes can be made to a project.

• Stronger quality assurance, in which assurance happens before contributions are merged.

• Improved branch-handling.

• Better source-handling.