DeveloperApplication

Revision 9 as of 2013-08-16 09:06:03

Clear message

I, Aron Xu, apply for Ubuntu Core Developers (core-dev).

Who I am

I am a Linux user since 2004 and started to contribute to Ubuntu since Feisty. I love the free software spirit and want to share it with more and more people all over the world.

My Ubuntu story

I was a translator from the very beginning of my contribution to Ubuntu (also upstream like GNOME/KDE/TP/Debian), I am leading Ubuntu Simplified Chinese Translators team as well as Launchpad Simplified Chinese Translators, and am a Ubuntu Translators Coordinators team member (not that active, though).

I've been a Debian Developer since May 2011, maintain some packages and do some sponsor work.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

In this application I apply for Ubuntu Core Developers as my work focus has moved to Ubuntu itself (especiall Desktop). I have PPU for input method related packages because a big proportion of my previous work are directly related to them. I have also been working on a quite wide range of packages as co-maintainer or sponsor.

Input methods is an important field I'm involved, and I tried to maintain compatibility of those packages between Debian and Ubuntu so that they can be directly synced without massive changes. I work in IME Packaging Team and I'm currently one of the most active member. I co-maintain Fcitx input method family, and work on important changes like input support in Multi-arch environment and reliable start-up of modern input method frameworks. All of them lead to my increasing involvement of IBus family and im-config.

Areas of work

The most difficult thing in input method is to get to know how people use it and what they want, which is not that easy for developers and designers who don't actually use it. I'd like to provide my insights on which way of CJK input experience is the preferred one, and help on updating the packages in accordance to users requests.

During the time I work with Ubuntu developers who have been involved with input methods, I find that they tried hard on technical side of making the packages stabler (or break less) and guarantee the software is usable without serious regression. But there are problem of choosing what users want and how it can be implemented better as mentioned above, and I see such work is in kind of a blank situation in Ubuntu, so I would like to give it a try.

Things I could do better

I will need to do more communications about the very topic, online or in person.

Plans for the future

A recent plan is to attend next UDS and open a session. I wasn't able to attend UDS-R because of personal issue, and even though there is already a session about input support in Unity (Nux), the topic can go further to about the whole input experience in the system.

A longer term plan would be pushing the research of input experience, of which the initial steps aren't necessarily backed by a company. This will require a lot more communications on this topic than we already have.

Comments

If you'd like to comment, but are not the applicant or a sponsor, do it here. Don't forget to sign with @SIG@.

Endorsements

As a sponsor, just copy the template below, fill it out and add it to this section.

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)

General feedback

I sponsored a number of Aron's uploads and could see how he put a lot of his energy into fixing Ubuntu and Debian at the same time. He's a skilled developer and doesn't mind looking at hard problems. I support his application 100% and am glad he's involved in Debian and Ubuntu.

Specific Experiences of working together

ZhengpengHou

General feedback

He came to me asking for sponsor upload his package in 2009 when he was a high school students, almost 4 years passed, he is still active around, being involved deeply into open source community, also I witnessed his contributions to the local developer community. I firmly support his application, not only for his existing contribution, but also for his persistent passion to Ubuntu/Debian.

Specific Experiences of working together

TEMPLATE

== <SPONSORS NAME> ==
=== General feedback ===
## Please fill us in on your shared experience. (How many packages did you sponsor? How would you judge the quality? How would you describe the improvements? Do you trust the applicant?)

=== Specific Experiences of working together ===
''Please add good examples of your work together, but also cases that could have handled better.''
=== Areas of Improvement ===