The OpenSuse project has released an automated build system intended to make it easier for developers to build and package their applications. The OpenSuse Build Service can package software for most popular Linux distributions and compile it for a range of architectures.

Version 1.0 of the tools were released yesterday. The tools are hosted by Novell and are a set of build scripts to package software in chrooted build environments.

The tools can package applications for RPM systems such as OpenSuse but can also package software for Suse and Suse Enterprise, Debian Etch, Red Hat, Fedora, centOS, Mandriva and Ubuntu.

Packaging software can be done through a python-based commandline tool, a browser-based front end or a standalone application.

The OpenSuse implementation of the build tools can be found here.