Using Erlang to implement a autonomous build and distribution system for software projects

The uptake of Open-Source Software (OSS) has led to new business models as well as software development practices. OSS projects are constrained by their limited resources both in time and manpower. In order to be successful such projects have to leverage tools to automate as many tasks as possible while providing usable results. One such set of tools used in software development are continuous build systems, which help teams to build and test their software whenever a change is published without manual interaction. The available systems have proven to be essential for any kind software project but are lacking real innovation. This paper presents how Erlang, especially its distributed operation, fault-tolerance and lightweight processes, has been utilized to develop a next-generation continuous build system. This system executes many long-running tasks in parallel for any given change of the monitored software project, providing developers not only with the latest state of the project but also offers customizable software packaging and patch distribution.