The Launchpad website lets you learn about and manage bugs, projects, questions, and other artifacts of software development. These same objects are gradually being exposed through a web service, so that you can access them from scripts, applications, or other websites, in addition to accessing them through the Launchpad website. The service is designed around the principles of REST, with the goals of simplicity and transparency.
The Launchpad web service is currently in a limited beta, open to Launchpad's beta testers.
"Shuttleworth said last year that opening Launchpad is part of the company's long-term strategy, but that it couldn't be done until there was a clear revenue model for paying its developers. The lack of a clear timeline has contributed to skepticism and doubt."
In Launchpad, projects are special groups of software products that share a development community. Examples include Gnome, KDE, and Mozilla. Launchpad allows you to group several products together in a project, to make coordination and tracking simpler.