I, Dmitry Shachnev, apply for MOTU upload rights.

Who I am

I’m author of ReText editor, and some smaller projects and libraries.

In real life, I’m 19-year-old student at Mathematics department of Moscow State University.

My Ubuntu story

I’ve been using Ubuntu since version 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), started contributing to Ubuntu/Debian in summer 2011 (retext changelog dates back to Mon, 13 Jun 2011).

I have choosen Ubuntu because of it’s good hardware support and nice default interface (GNOME). Actually, I am still using GNOME (both GNOME Shell and GNOME Panel).

My involvement

My areas of involvement:

1. Python modules (Docutils, Sphinx, Markdown, Nose, PyXdg, Gdata, SecretStorage, Markups);

2. python*-defaults packages;

3. My own apps (ReText, Unity-Mail);

4. MathJax;

5. Qt;
6. Ubuntu packaging guide;
7. Random bits of GNOME;
8. Random syncs and merges from Debian.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Launchpad provides lists of:

• Packages maintained by me;

• Packages uploaded by me;

• Packages synchronized by me.

There is also a list of packages sponsored for me.

Things I’m proud of:

• I was in top-50 uploaders in Raring cycle.

• During last two cycles I’ve done a lot of work for the Ubuntu Packaging Guide (theming, internationalization, packaging, content, russian translation). See the results here.

• According to the 5-a-day project statistics, I have been doing my “5-a-day” bug squashing for 32 days in a row (but that was long time ago).

• I’m primary maintainer of seven packages in Debian and one more in Ubuntu.

• I’m also doing most of the Ubuntu-specific maintenance work for Sphinx and Docutils.

Areas of work

Apart from packaging, I am also:

• translating packages (as a part of my UbuntuRussianTranslators team membership);

• triaging bugs;
• contributing upstream (i.e. I’ve become upstream contributor to Qt this cycle);
• reviewing sponsorship queue items;
• helping others in the IRC.

Things I could do better

I take very little care of documentation. Some of my packages are not documented at all (such as PyMarkups and Unity Mail).

Plans for the future

I want to become a core developer this cycle. I also plan to become a Debian Developer.

What I like least in Ubuntu

The errors.ubuntu.com service. It’s slow, doesn’t allow users to track their bugs state, and, most importantly, is available only for Canonical employees.

Another thing I dislike are the new vUDS-es. Though I have never participated in a “real” UDS, I think that relying on a trird-party proprietary service, that needs one to have a profile in a social network, is a no-no for an open source project.

Comments

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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 ===

CategoryMOTUApplication