PerPackageUploaderApplication

Revision 6 as of 2009-05-11 06:59:30

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I, Charlie Smotherman, apply for upload rights for packages Ampache, Ampache-themes and Coherence.

Name

Charlie Smotherman

Launchpad Page

https://edge.launchpad.net/~cjsmo

Wiki Page

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CharlieSmotherman

Who I am

I am 48 years old and I live in the United States. I have been married to my sweetheart for the last 17 years and I have 4 children, and 9 grandchildren with one on the way. I served a 10 year stint in the U.S Army, after the Army I went back to college and obtained a degree in Nursing and soon after passed the Texas Registered Nurse Certification Exam. At which time I was issued my Registered Nurses Licence, and have since had 10+ years in the Intensive Care Unit taking care of open heart surgery patients until the stress almost killed me (literally). I now work part time at a local nursing home, which gives me some free time to play with grandchildren and work on Ubuntu. I am the current Maintainer for Ampache and Ampache-Themes in Debian. I am also listed as the Co-Maintainer for Coherence.

My Ubuntu story

I came to know Ubuntu when Dapper was released. After becoming frustrated trying to install one of my favourite pieces of software, Ampache, on that OS from Redmond, I decided to give Ubuntu a try. I was so impressed with the easy of installation and that it was a piece of cake to install Ampache, I never looked back. I have since converted my wife from windows to Ubuntu (no easy task in itself), along with several of my friends.

I am by no means an IT professional, nor do I work in the IT industry, I am just an avid Debian/Ubuntu user that has the desire to give back to a community that has given me so much.

I am a very active member in the Ampache and Coherence upstream projects, on IRC and in the user forums helping to answer Debian/Ubuntu related questions and staying abreast of changes.

My involvement

Ampache is my first love. I am a music nut and in my opinion Ampache is the best music management software out on the web (sorry I'm a little biased). Actually Ampache is responsible for me trying Ubuntu in the first place, it is responsible for me getting into development. I developed Ampache's packaging, and I am the current package maintainer in Debian. I have also developed the packaging for Ampache-themes, which I am also the current package maintainer in Debian. During the Debian Release Freeze to get Lenny ready for released, nxvl, james_w, norsetto, and dholbach helped me get an updated version of Ampache into Intrepid, which I later pushed to Debian as soon as the Debian Release Freeze was over. James_w helped me get an updated version of ampache-themes into Intrepid, which added several new themes to the package. Thijs Kinkhorst is the kind DD who has done all of Ampache's and Ampache-Themes uploads in Debian.

I am also trying to get Quickplay included into Debian. Quickplay is a light mp3 player front end for Amapche which utilises Ampache's XML API, and is currently on mentors.debian.net and on REVU. Quickplay's upstream author has ported Quickplay (amdroid) to be used on Verisons G1 phones.

During the Jaunty cycle Scottk, DktrKranz, and nhandler have helped me with an FFe for python-coherence. Python-coherence also utilises Ampache's XML API to attach Ampache to the UPnP living network. During this FFe update I also collaborated with Arnaud Quette, the DD who maintains python-coherence, to update the Debian version first before requesting a sync to Ubuntu. Arnaud was kind enough to make me a co-maintainer of the python-coherence package.

Iulian helped me to get a bug fix only update of the package i8kutils uploaded during the jaunty cycle.

I hope this demonstrates that I understand the importance of working with debian, and making sure that any changes in Ubuntu make their way into Debian.

I am also part of the MOTU Mentoring Reception Team. I help huats and nxvl in matching potential contributors with willing MOTU mentors. Being part of this team has really help me to meet and converse with quite a number of MOTU's.

I am also a moderator on REVU. Prior to nhandler taking over as REVU coordinator, I bugged RainCT so much about archiving packages that had already been uploaded and the such that RainCT made me a REVU moderator, which basically allows me to archive packages on my own now.

There is currently a new version of Ampache out, it is being held up due this bug #526719 which is a licensing issue with the XSPF Juke Box Flash player that Ampache utilizes. This bug has required some communication with the author of XSPF Juke Box. Lacy has been slow to respond. There are currently 2 Debian and 2 Ubuntu bugs open which will be closed with the Ampache-3.5 upload.

Once the above mentioned bug is fixed there will also be a new version of Ampache-themes released which will include a new theme called 2col. Currently there are zero Debian bugs and 1 Ubuntu bug, which will be closed when sync'd.

There is currently one Debian bug and zero Ubuntu bugs open against Coherence. This bug will be closed when the new 0.7 version of Coherence is released sometime in May.

Things I could do better

There is always room for improvement. I am continually reading documentation and learning as much about Debian/Ubuntu as I can. Becoming more proficient at bash scripting is something I am always trying to improve on, along with learning a programing language such as python or php (other than the basics) is on the top of my todo list.

Plans for the future

As time goes on and my skills increase I will naturally become more and more active in Ubuntu and Debian, and I hope to one day be a DD/MOTU. I do not feel that my skills are to the point where I feel comfortable appling for MOTU, however, with Ampache and Ampache-themes this is a differnent story I know the packaging intimately as I developed it.

If given archive upload rights by no means do I feel that these packages belong to me, and I would welcome additional help if anyone else where to show interest in these packages. With that said I monitor Ampaches upstream on a regular basis, and I usually converse with Ampaches upstream at least once a week.

What I like least in Ubuntu

About the only things that I dislike about Ubuntu is developers who do not submit their patches upstream to Debian, and trying to get someone to review a package on REVU.

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 ~5 packages and was generally happy with what I saw. Charlie is quick to follow up on problems and seems to take good care of ampache.

Specific Experiences of working together

Areas of Improvement

Generally just more experience, I guess.

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 ===

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