I, Scott Howard, apply for universe-contributor.

Who I am

I'm an academic researcher with a PhD in electrical engineering.

My Ubuntu story

Tell us how and when you got involved, what you liked working on and what you could probably do better.

My involvement

I started by setting up a Debian LAMP/samba server for my lab around 2004. I installed Debian on my desktop to learn linux when someone told me of this new distro called "Ubuntu." I've been using Ubuntu/Xubuntu since. After the release of Jaunty, I've been active with the bug squad and eventually bug control, participating in many hugdays as a triager, and I now review bug control applications. I adopted the gnome-power-manager package for triaging, and triaged nearly every "new" GPM bug over the course of a month (see the chart below). While triaging the bugs I worked a lot with upstream, and started writing patches to fix bugs. I think started writing patches for Ubuntu, and bringing upstream's patches to Ubuntu. Now I'm a triager/developer of sorts that can triage, write the patch, test it with PPAs, and then do the merge proposal with bzr on LP. Since GPM is a core package, I joined Ubuntu Science to get some "universe" experience.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

list from the other page apport hook for GPM (we now use upstream's standard bug report script)

more cool bugs: something with gconf settings in GPM, default for on lid close inhibit fixing combo box broken (not remembering settings) bug (wrote patch for upstream, tested on LP/ubuntu, brought patch to ubuntu, tested it) tried to update gnome-power-manager: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/419628, after it was done i did the following: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/419858 --remove unnecessary patch https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/octave3.0/+bug/422058 --fixed a ftbfs by simply rebuilding (bug in a depend. package) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashrom/+bug/424385 --did necessary work for freeze exception and built ppa for testing https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/k3dsurf/+bug/295140 --upgraded k3dsurf to new version to fix bug, ppa for testing

while trying to get this synced, found upstream bug, patched it into ubuntu, got a needed library synced and tested: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qtiplot/+bug/374543 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qwt/+bug/433718

synced/uploaded/worked on: qtiplot flashrom k3dsurf

Areas of work

gnome-power-manager: triage, patch writing for upstream & Ubuntu, patching Ubuntu, maintaining an experimental GPM PPA, merges for GPM's Ubuntu bzr packaging branches. I have upload permission at the gnome git for GPM. Ubuntu Science: beginning to work on maintenance of packages.

Things I could do better

Understand debhelper scripts better, learn more of Debian packaging.

Plans for the future

General

Keep the Ubuntu Science packages working, and work with Debian Science to keep both Debian and Ubuntu's science offerings the best that is available.

What I like least in Ubuntu

When working with GPM, I saw the Ubuntu was user rich and developer poor. I felt "alone" triaging, patching, and testing some of the bugs. I found that this could be used as a strength - I learned to use LP to craft high quality bug reports that pin pointed bugs, and even proposed how to fix the exact line in the source code using the help from the users on LP. Frequently the upstream developers were not aware of the bugs and appreciated the percise fixes we could provide from LP GPM bug with the crash when unplugging AC GPM patch for gconf settings being incorrect GPM patch for crashing when plugging in/out AC https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=598221

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 ===

CategoryUniverseContributorApplication