I, Serge Hallyn, apply for upload rights for the Ubuntu Server package set.

Who I am

I live in the US. I did graduate school at William and Mary in Virginia, where I first got involved in linux kernel hacking and DTE (aka TE as in selinux). While a graduate student, I was also sysadmin for a myriad of platforms including linux. I spent a year in Dresden working for Scionics doing programming in python, before joining IBM's linux technology center. Last year, I moved to Canonical.

I'm a member of the ubuntu server team, most active in the virtualization stack and, recently, enterprise storage stack. I've been maintaining the KVM and libvirt packages and active in the LXC package.

My Ubuntu story

I started using Ubuntu after years of gentoo, when I received a new work laptop and needed to have it up very quickly. Ever since, I've appreciated the quick installs, quick upgrades, and, for machines with little interaction, the stability and low rate of updates for LTS releases.

I got involved with Ubuntu development when I joined Canonical. I have upload rights to some of the packages I'm most involved in, like qemu-kvm, libvirt, and multipath-tools. However people are getting tired my asking them to sponsor uploads for other packages like lxc.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

I've been very active in packaging (both for devel and SRUs) for libvirt, qemu-kvm, multipath-tools, and lxc. I've worked with debian to push bugfixes for vsftpd, setools, and initramfs-tools.

• http://pad.lv/350936 - libvirt shutdown - proposed tree for merge

• http://pad.lv/753308 - lxc autostart

• http://pad.lv/814222 - qemu-kvm convert 127G - sent patch upstream

• http://pad.lv/660597 - multipath-tools SRU

• http://pad.lv/644489 (multipath-tools) pushed SRU for ppetraki

• http://pad.lv/794202 - libcap on large files - submitted debian bug with debdiff

• http://pad.lv/786941 kvm lucid boot -n

• http://pad.lv/784888 - vmbuilder partition files with <3 args.

• http://pad.lv/582769 (libcap -lpam) - forwarded to debian

• http://pad.lv/747090 (qemu-kvm INT)

• http://pad.lv/771227 - virsh save doesn't restore right (kernel from INT bug works for me)

• http://pad.lv/697046 - libvirt build-depend on parted - do SRU

• http://pad.lv/280421 and 777193 - ethtool to /sbin - pushed fix and SRU for lucid

• http://pad.lv/693594 - libcgroup shouldn't move kernel threads to cgroups

• http://pad.lv/769025 - libcgroup fails purge - fixed in cgconfig.conf post-script

• http://pad.lv/726099 - libvirt crashes - move nodeDeviceLock higher into callers?

• http://pad.lv/574665 - qemu-kvm lucid 1Tb write - pushed fix to lucid-proposed

• http://pad.lv/644669 - libcgroup upstart, start before libvirt

• http://pad.lv/697676 (ntp tick) - forwarded to debian

• make multipath-tools-boot version with modified upstart script - forwarded to debian

Areas of work

Packaged kvm for lucid, maverick, and natty. Packaged libvirt for natty. Recently merged vmbuilder fixes and proposed new uploads. Pushed casper fix to deal more gracefully with mount failures. Worked with debian to push bugfixes for vfstpd, setools, and initramfs-tools.

I've been particularly active in lxc, where I'm contributing to the kernel, upstream lxc, debian packages, and of course the ubuntu packages.

Things I could do better

I want to get more involved with debian packaging. I do try to send patches to debian maintainers when I find relevant bugs, but I still feel uneasy when doing it, so I may like to get more involved in non-bugfix packaging for debian packages.

Plans for the future

General

I know I've still got plenty to learn about packaging. I intend to do more syncs and merges on non-server packages to build up my experience in preparation for coredev membership.

What I like least in Ubuntu

I love Ubuntu

Sometimes it can be frustrating to figure out precisely what fixed a specific bug, especially when the corresponding UDD tree has stopped syncing and the changelog entry is overly vague. My hope is that UDD - and especially the auto-syncing of uploads - will keep getting better to help address this. When I sponsor packages, I will push for changelog entries that make future guessing (when a bug crops back up, or when syncing) unnecessary.

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 ===