Comment 2 for bug 474425

Screen real estate on the Launchpad page is a non-issue, because the hyperlink text is (or can be) just the bug number, not the entire URL. (Screen real estate in e-mail/forums/etc. where LP links might be pasted, in turn, is the reason why the shorter-form links are desirable in the first place.)

If a user wishes to avoid the extra half-second of loading time, s/he can copy-and-paste the long-form URL from the browser's location bar. If a user wants the short URL, however, there's nowhere to get it on the page. There is the

    <link rel="canonical" href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/NNNNNN" />

element at the top of the page source, but the user shouldn't have to view the page source to be able to copy that URL.