I, Дмитрий Ледков, tentatively preparing to apply for universe-contributor.

Who I am

I am a 4th year Engineering Student studying Mobile Telecommunications Technology. I enjoy snowboarding, volleyball and computers =D. I play volleyball for my Uni and I'm also National Volleyball League referee. v4sw5CLUYhw4ln6pr6FOck3ma9u7LMw2GWm7l6+8Ui6e6t4Xb7OPTen6s6MSr3g5AMZ

My Ubuntu story

From Apple to Latex, to Emacs, to Ubuntu.

In 2002 I've met Mac for the first time. I've used it for a year. Then I was dreaming about a MacBook for 3 years (we didn't have apple stores back then). After those three long years, I've entered University and got my MacBook. I needed something to give me nice formulas for assignments and I've discovered a "small" app LaTeXiT which converts Latex snippets to svg drag and dropable equations.

Quickly after that it become apparent to me that LaTeX is so much more and I've started to use it. I found it hard and confusing to install TexLive the way I needed it and good free Latex editors were missing. (TeXShop is great but was too strange for me at the time). So on the way to find good latex editor I found AucTeX (emacs mayor mode). I couldn't get the normal emacs (Not the Apple's crippled, and Carbon is ugly). So I somehow stumble upon articles saying that Ubuntu runs on Macs (I though "of course now that it is Intel-based") and it has emacs gtk which looked gorgeous! I've downloaded Feisty runned it first as live cd only, then had it in virtual machine, then installed it as 2nd operating system, then deleted, then reinstalled Gutsy. Since gutsy I've started to transition to Ubuntu as my main OS. Now I have Intrepid on my MacBook and Intrepid server on an old donated to me laptop =D

Take off

It started out quite funny:

A few weeks before Jaunty FeatureFreeze there was an email posted to ubuntu-motu from Crosswire Developers saying that they are disappointed with state of their packages and want someone to start maintaining them better. It then has been cross-posted by Ubuntu Developer to debian-devel. A DD in charge was found and he issued a call for a team to help manage these.

I was staring at these emails seeing them as an ideal opportunity to begin my Debian/Ubuntu packaging carrier. I didn't know what Crosswire software was at all. The tipping point was that there were already 3-4 people from Ubuntu side who have signed up to that new team on Alioth. And I thought there will be us ubunterros with DD on our side..... WHERE DO I SIGN UP????? Was my immediate thought.

Little did I know it's Bible study software. Anyhow after a few flamewars with upstream we had fun packaging libsword, Xiphos, BibleTime and other software. It was not scary at all ("DO NOT TOUCH THE LIBRARIES") quite the contrary ("BASH THE UPSTREAM WITH LIBTOOL MANUAL!") /me joking. DH7, CDBS and ubuntu wiki / MOTU school defiantly made it easy to start out. There have been a few flame wars along the way. I have to start learning how to win those =)))

%:

• dh --with win-flamewars $@

Now

• Active developer in Debian/Ubuntu Crosswire Packaging Team (Our PPA is part of Ubuntu Christian Edition) http://ubuntuce.com/

• Member of PMPT/PAPT yet to make an upload.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Packaging

• Debian -> Ubuntu https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xiphos

• Debian -> Ubuntu https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sword

• "Backports" hardy <- jaunty ~pkgcrosswire/ppa

• Daily builds for Xiphos ~crosswire-daily/ppa

• Karmic gcc4.4 FTBFS lp: #386138

Helping

• Small bug reports here and there with sometimes (rarely really) bugfixes
• Same in upstream projects (build-chain fixes)

Areas of work

launchpad.net/~pkgcrosswire

Things I could do better

I should be more patient and not generate less build errors in team PPA's =)

Plans for the future

General

• 1 Life
  • Become 3N grade referee
  • Get selected for National Tecnical Volleyball Referee 2012
  2 Crosswire Packaging Team
  • Continue maintaining both in Debian and Ubuntu

What I like least in Ubuntu

• 1 Absence of Simple Photo and Video browsing App
  • no database
  • Python
  • Photos and Videos my sister likes to do quick small clips with her digicam to complement the pictures she takes and I'd like to browse both as one entity
  2 Solution
  • package jBrout
  • create a plugin for it so that it can handle video (probably gstreamer ;-))
  3 dpkg-source v3 bzr
  • I want it NOW
  4 Solution
  • Help to release Squeeze

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.

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 ===

CategoryUniverseContributorApplication