Julien Lavergne (gilir)

Julien Lavergne

Desktop

Desk

Age: 26
Location: Paris, France
IRC Nick: gilir

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
My first distro was a Mandriva in 2004, but I really began to use Linux with an Ubuntu 5.04.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since Hoary (5.04). It was the first ditro I used full time. I’m using Ubuntu until now, with some period under Debian Sid.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I began during Edgy cycle, by reporting some bugs, doing some testing. I began with no particular knowledge, no coding skills, a terrific English (still a problem, but it’s better ) I quickly learn how to patch, re-build a package, or playing with apt-get. My first package uploaded on Ubuntu was avant-window-navigator, and it’s still my favorite pet package

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Mostly the documentation, Debian reference and Debian Policy, and all How-To for all tools (cdbs, quilt, dh7, python-support …). I learned also with all my sponsors, in both Debian and Ubuntu.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
No particular favorite part. When I work too much on a part, I switch to another so I always have something fun to do.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Don’t start with a new package. You will learn faster, and more by working on existing packages. And there is so much to do with existing packages … It’s also a good way to find sponsors for future new packages you want to include

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
A bit with the French LoCo Team, installing Ubuntu on new users during Ubuntu parties in Paris. It’s nice to talk to users sometimes, to listen their problems/wishes/trolls

What are you going to focus on in Karmic and Karmic+1?
For Karmic, I kept an eye on some packages I try to maintain (awn, ogmrip, conduit …). For Lynx, I’ll have more time for sync packages from Debian, introduce new stuff, and work on Lubuntu more than I done for Karmic.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Not much time after real work and Ubuntu work, but when I find some time, I watches movies, and travel.

Jonathan Carter (highvoltage)

Jonathan Carter

Main Work Area

Netbook Desktop

Age: 27
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
IRC Nick: highvoltage

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using Linux since 1999, I started out with Red Hat Linux and did lots of distro-hopping. After that, I settled on Debian in 2003.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I was working for the Shuttleworth Foundation at the time and my manager dropped a CD on my desk and said something like “This is the new Linux distribution that Mark is working on, it’s called Warty” and it was a pre-release of Ubuntu 4.10 which I installed on a server the first time, I’ve been an Ubuntu user since.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I was in London in 2005 for the Edubuntu Summit where I met Oliver Grawert, he was my first MOTU mentor, although work got in the way a lot with my MOTU progress. Before Ubuntu existed, it was one of my aspirations to one day be a really good Debian contributor, and hopefully one day I will be, but universe seems like a real good place to start.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I initially looked at the Debian New Maintainers Guide, but I found paging through the Debian Policy Manual to be much more useful. I’ve always had good experiences asking questions on the #ubuntu-motu IRC channel. Even the most experienced developers and packagers there are always friendly and welcoming.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
I enjoy learning, the MOTU team is very open and they never mind sharing information or knowledge. I’ve worked in corporate environments where people are afraid to share knowledge because it may make them seem less valuable if other people had the same knowledge as they did. The MOTUs are great at solving problems and helping others do so.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Be patient. Packaging can be tricky sometimes whether it’s just making a bug fix or getting a whole new piece of software into the archives. Also, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, even experience packagers are also human and make mistakes. I’ve never had a MOTU yell at me or be impatient for not knowing anything, so just get in there and try not to stress.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Yes, I’ve been on the Cape Town Linux Users Group committee for a few years and I’m the co-leader (we have two leaders who share responsibilities) of the Ubuntu-ZA team. I’m stepping down from both soon since I’ll be working a lot in other countries next year. I’ll still be involved in both and may take leadership roles in them again in the future.

What are you going to focus on in Lucid and beyond?
For Lucid I’m going to focus on Edubuntu and I’ll also do upstream work on LTSP Cluster. There are many things that are currently unpackaged that would be useful in an Ubuntu Educational environment and I’d like to get as much of it as possible into Ubuntu.

I’m interested in a lot of server related things. I have lots of ideas so one day when Edubuntu becomes a bit more boring I’ll shift a bit more to the server side.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Nothing spectacular, I listen to music, go to the gym to try to counter all the time I spend sitting in front of a computer and spend time with friends. I always wanted to start a band so when I have to time I play around with Garage Band (eek, yes that’s on a Mac). I often spend some time playing with all kinds of gadgets, last Sunday I spent a good part of the day installing all kinds of free software on my Wii using the Homebrew Channel.

Robert Ancell (robert_ancell)

Desktop

Virtual Desktop

Age: Old enough
Location: Sydney, Australia
IRC Nick: robert_ancell

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
Been using Linux since at least 2000, first distro was probably either RedHat 4 or 5.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I think since the start. Before that I was using Debian Unstable and I transitioned to Ubuntu around 2004.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I’ve been proposing packages for uploading for the last five months and two days ago I was accepted as a MOTU.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I learned packaging by creating Debian packages for upstream projects I produced by following the Debian maintainers guide. I’m still working out how the Ubuntu teams work

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Getting the latest stuff out there so people can use it!

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Triage, reproduce and fix bugs!

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
No. I do go to the Sydney Python (http://www.sypy.org) group meetings from time to time however.

What are you going to focus on in Karmic and Lucid?
I’ve been spending most of my time working on general bug fixing for Karmic. I plan to spend some time working on the GDM login screen and user management for Lucid.

What do you do in your other spare time?
I’m about to do a 90km bike ride in a few weeks – I’ve been training for the last month or so after not having done any serious biking for some years.

Andres Rodriguez (RoAkSoAx)

Age: 24
Location: Miami, FL.
IRC Nick: RoAkSoAx.

Andres Rodriguez

New work environment

Laptop screenshot

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using Linux on daily basis for almost 3 years now, but I started with Red Hat 7.1 on 2001.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I’ve been using Ubuntu since 2005, just a few days after Hoary Hedgehog was released, but it wasn’t until 6.10 that I started using it on daily basis.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Well, I always wanted to get involved with Open Source and I found Ubuntu a great place to start. I actually started reading the Developer Documentation released with 6.06, but never got the time to actually commit myself to it due to work and studies. Mostly because It’s not easy to get started in Open Source in a third world country like Peru, where everything is pretty much M$ oriented.

Anyways, when Nicolas Valcarcel (nxvl) became MOTU, I just said “I want to become a MOTU too”, and I requested a Mentorship for the Intrepid Development cycle, however I was unable to finish it due to personal reasons. So, it wasn’t till the Karmic development cycle that I pretty much put all my spare time into it (I restarted my Mentorship, but with ivoks this time), and now you see me here .

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
What I believe helped me learn packaging was my desire to do it, and the willingness to put my hands on packaging, but of course all of that was driven by the documentation, my mentors, and all the people that reviewed my packages and helped me along the way. Something that I was told, and you all might know is that you will always learn something new while being a MOTU.

What’s your favourite part of working with the MOTU?
My favourite part is that no matter who you are, what you do, where you at, and what time is it, someone will be there to help you, and that you can learn so much from other people. I also find amusing to work on such a distributed environment.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Yes. If you really have the desire to help and become a MOTU just commit to it, because if you do, you’ll always find the time to help out. Read the documentation and always ask questions; don’t get disappointed if people are not around to answer them. You might make a lots of mistakes but you must be willing to learn form them and listen to what others have to say! And well, just practice, practice, and continue to practice!

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Yes. My involvement with LUGs started with AQPGLUG, which is the group from my hometown. Then, I got involved with the Ubuntu LoCo Team, where I’m now one of the Council Members. Right now, since I do not live in Peru any more, I’m on my search for a new LUG to get involved with here at FIU.

What are you going to focus on in Karmic and Karmic+1?
My focus for Karmic will be the Sponsorship Queue and bugfixes. For Karmic+1 it will be the Server Team and the Ubuntu HA team, now that I have more experience. However I would really like to get involved with the Security Team (because I’ve always wanted to be a Security Expert) and with the Desktop Team (because I use it every day and it just feels right to contribute to it).

What do you do in your other spare time?
Well, the past few months (between May and July), I pretty much spent all my spare time in the MOTU mentorship process. The past 3 weeks I haven’t had much spare time. However, I like to hang out with friends, watch movies, play video games and play soccer and tennis.

Stefan Lesicnik (stefanlsd)

Age: 28
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
IRC Nick: stefanlsd

second from the right

Desktop

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been involved with Linux since around 1996. After leaving school and doing an MCSE (sorry!), I knew I only wanted to work with Linux. My first distribution was Redhat 3.0.3 (Picasso).

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
After using Gentoo for many years, i finally moved to Ubuntu Feisty and haven’t looked back since!

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I started to contribute during the Intrepid cycle. I am not a great programmer (although really enjoy it), so I mainly started with small fixes. Adding a watch file, incorporating a patch, looking at various bugs and trying to assist. I attended or read the logs of all of the Ubuntu developer week sessions (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek) and followed the MOTU resources from the wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted)

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I like to try and do something myself. It’s typically then when I run into all the problems and deepen my understanding of how things actually work. I started by upgrading some packages (GPA), and then finally packaging something (Google Gears).

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
I love being able to improve something I use and work with everyday. I enjoy the challenges and learning more about how an operating systems and community fits together technically, but also socially.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Just do it! There is an initial curve when learning the basics, but it gets easier. You don’t need to be a programmer to help, there are great resources and people to assist. Join us on IRC and ask questions! The MOTU mentorship program also is there to help you – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Mentoring

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I am involved with the Ubuntu-ZA loco (http://wiki.ubuntu-za.org/). On the 27th of June 2009 we will be running our PackagingJam (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Packaging) in Johannesburg!

What are you going to focus on in Karmic?
I am currently working on a way to assist in the syncing of security fixes from Debian to Ubuntu. Furthermore I would like to look at the process on how the merges and syncs are conducted and how this can be improved. I want to get Google Gears into the archive, as well as assist with sponsoring work from contributors.

What do you do in your other spare time?
I focus a fair amount on my real job and social life. I love reading, and learning new things (currently german and python mainly).

Pedro Fragoso

Age: 23
Location: Lisbon/Portugal
IRC Nick: ember

Desk

Screenshot

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
My first distro was Mandrake, i don’t remember which one, but i remember that i started using Linux when Red Hat 6.0 was released (that was my second distro). I’ve used Red Hat up to 8.0 and then switched to Slackware -> ArchLinux -> Gentoo -> Debian -> Ubuntu. (sort of)

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I’ve switched to Ubuntu when Gutsy was still in development, i kinda installed Feisty and upgraded to Gutsy.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
When Gutsy was released i decided to take a shot and get into development to Hardy, i spend my Gutsy journey trying to understand some bits of Ubuntu development. I started to contribute some bits and giving some love to packages of the Desktop Team.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Mostly by reading the wiki.ubuntu.com and asking on IRC. And with help of some people (like Daniel Holbach and all the Ubuntu Desktop Team)

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Be part of making something great like Ubuntu, the community and all the people around Ubuntu development.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Read, start with simple things like triage bugs, and then try something like patches, packing, merges, new upstreams, if you need help spend some time on irc (#ubuntu-motu) and ask.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Yes, I’m involved in the Portuguese LoCo.

What are you going to focus on in Karmic?
I’m going to focus on cleaning some bugs and polish some gnome updates, and try to work more with upstream.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Spare time? My spare time is for Ubuntu, the other ‘time’ is for working/studying and sleeping

Jo Shields (directhex)

Age: 25, if Evolution’s calendaring is to be believed.
Location: Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
IRC Nick: directhex

Screenshot

Not pictured: the 7ft pile of junk that was formed in allowing such a neat desk photo

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
Actively using Linux, I’d say since around 2001. I did a Computer Science degree where the undergraduate laboratories were a 50-50 split between Red Hat and Windows machines. The Red Hat machines were faster, had bigger screens, were always available for use, and (most importantly) had access to a student-run NFS server filled with exciting things like multi-player games.

The first time I actually used Linux generally was when I was at school – probably around the time of Red Hat 5.2. The experience left me swearing off that nonsense for years to come – I was a big fan of BeOS as a non-Windows OS, and at the time, there was really zero comparison between Red Hat and Be in terms of usability. I didn’t install on my own PC again until around 2003-2004, when I installed Debian (or a slight Debian derivative with a kernel actually capable of booting on my system), bouncing around a number of distributions such as MEPIS. I didn’t really use it in anger until the demo for Unreal Tournament 2004 was released, and I discovered the faster load times under Linux gave me a competitive advantage online, leading to the odd situation where for a while I was using Linux for gaming, and Windows for working.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I eyed Ubuntu with a degree of suspicion when 4.10 was first released, almost as if it were “cheating” to have a Debian which didn’t require some blood, sweat and tears to get going. I first installed it on an office laptop with 5.10, assuming that getting Debian to be 100% happy on a laptop was probably more trouble than it was worth. I enjoyed the experience enough to begin using Ubuntu as my default distribution, and migrating Debian desktops to Ubuntu over time

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I began getting formally involved around the middle of the Intrepid cycle – it became clear to me that many packages I was a user of were not being updated much, as the guy who had previously taken charge of merges was busy with other tasks. I decided to pitch in and help, as much as possible, and helped get a few merges arranged to ensure Intrepid would ship with a relatively current set of packages.

This was, however, fairly late in the Intrepid cycle, which left me time to speak with the relevant Debian and Ubuntu people about Jaunty. When it became apparent how much work would be needed to make some exciting changes happen in Debian, which would benefit every Jaunty user, I decided to try and coordinate as much as possible with the greater MOTU population – soliciting as many helpers as I could via IRC and mailing lists. And they delivered – work was completed in Debian (and in Jaunty) in record time, thanks to all of those contributors. Working with them was great fun, so I decided to try it again for Karmic!

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I’ve been running my own unofficial backport repository for a while (long before we had PPAs to make it easy), so I picked up a lot of packaging semantics from keeping those backports in good condition. The basics are fairly easy when all’s said and done – but the devil is in the details, and for the most part, nothing can beat experience in this regard.

Ubuntu teams work in a well-designed (to the casual observer) tiered manner, where it’s usually clear who to speak to at a given moment – and the people I’ve worked with have been pretty indulgent in helping to hurry things along where they’re blocking other work.

One thing I’ve tried to foster since I become involved with Ubuntu is cooperation with Debian – as a result, most of the packages I work on are worked on directly in Debian, alongside other MOTU, Ubuntu contributors, and of course Debian contributors and Developers too. As such, most of my interactions “in Ubuntu” (as opposed to in Debian with Ubuntu people) have been with the sponsors, archive admins, and release teams, and the same simple rule seems to apply for all of those: ask nicely, and do as you’re told.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Definitely the people – and perhaps more specifically, the respectfulness displayed in all directions. Every MOTU is working hard on the same goal – making Ubuntu more awesome. Where people disagree, it’s productive and informative on all sides. Where they agree, it leads to great collaboration and fast turnaround. The last big transition I was involved in was completed in record time, thanks to help from great contributions from MOTU people, who were happy to coordinate in Debian too.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Debian First. By all means, learn everything there is to know in Ubuntu – the people in #ubuntu-motu are often more welcoming, and the barriers to entry in getting your changes included are much lower. But by and large, try to remember Debian: Ubuntu changes benefit Ubuntu and a few others. Changes to Debian benefit everyone, including Ubuntu. This usually means little things like making sure your package builds in Debian Unstable as well as the latest Ubuntu development release (it usually should), and trying to get your packaging to Debian-ready condition from day one (especially the pesky debian/copyright file)

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I’m subscribed to the local LUG’s mailing list, but haven’t attended anything in meatspace.

What are you going to focus on in Karmic?
I have a big TODO in general, and I expect only some of it will happen in time for Karmic. Primarily, I’ve been trying to do a run on new upstream releases, and on syncability – I want to make sure complaints of “Ubuntu is OLD!” go away, and this means both ensuring the newest versions available are in the archive – and that new versions are pulled in with zero work when they appear in Debian thanks to a lack of Ubuntu deltas.

Tasks which I suspect will be delayed until Lazy Lemur include a focus on including support for new languages, and teaching myself how to package a WebApp.

What do you do in your other spare time?
“Other” spare time, after all the Ubuntu work? Is there such a thing? Videogames, mostly. I have far too many of them, as collected over the last 20 years, and can sink a lot of time into them. I’ve also got some pet chinchillas who need my attention. They’re very fluffy.

Brandon Holtsclaw (imbrandon)

Age: 30 ( 12/19/1978 )
Location: Kansas City, Missouri USA
IRC nick: imbrandon

Me and my wife

My Desktop Area (not pictured, my Intel MacBook Pro Laptop)

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
Not sure about the exact date but I started using linux at my first “Tech Job” around May 1997 on our servers ( our mail, webserver, and radius server ran RH 4.x – yes all on ONE box, scary) that i was responsible for. Not long after that I ran RH and SuSE on my desktops as “Secondary” OS’s for a long time until Breezy came out and all the tech media was a buzz about Ubuntu. I downloaded and gave it a shot and Kubuntu Breezy became my “Main” Desktop OS and I finally rid my computers of MS Windows forever at that point.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since the Beta release of Breezy Badger (Kubuntu 5.10)

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Very soon after the Release of Breezy I started noticing bit and parts I wanted changed and (k)ubuntu had such inviting developers that it was easy for me to interact with them on IRC and learn the basics of what needed to be done to contribute my patches (mostly gleened from upstream bug trackers), by the end of the Dapper Cycle I was a Seasoned MOTU helping others start just as I did on IRC

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Lots of very very friendly MOTU and Core-Developers on IRC from dholbach, jriddell, crimsun, mdz, ajmitch, StevenK, bddebian, azeem, Hobbsee and even Sabdfl himself (and honestly way too many to list here, those are the ones that are outstanding in my mind.) that didn’t mind answering questions and get me going in the right direction not having any prior .deb building or updating experience before coming mostly form a RPM based distro background not debian as most Early MOTU did.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
I cant pick just one easily but the top 2 are interaction with a great team of Ubuntu Contributers (it’s no fun if you don’t like whom you have to interact with), and the satisfaction I’m making a difference to many people by getting rid of BUGS!

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Don’t be afraid or thing you cant help out, it can be daunting at times but interact and do a little legwork on the Wiki. In no time you’ll be not only learning yourself but helping others just like yourself.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
We have a local LUG (www.kclug.org) I attend meeting sometimes and often give out Ubuntu CD’s and Help at events the LUG sponsors but I don’t participate as much as I would like, and we only have a State wide LOCO so again I don’t get to participate as much as I would like but do when I can.

What are you going to focus on in Karmic?
I would like to focus on Mono CLI apps and making GTK Apps (like pidgin) play nice in Kubuntu along with help mentor and sponsor new contributors to Ubuntu.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Computer Related I spend a lot of free time doing freelance web development and checking out new podcasts (oh how I miss Jono and Friends on Lugradio) Then when I’m not at the computer I love to go Camping and get out to the lake. I also spend waaayyyy too much time on Guitar Hero and Frets on Fire!!

Andreas Wenning (a|wen)

Age: 23
Location: Currently Bangkok, Thailand
IRC Nick: a|wen

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using linux since 2006, and my first distro was actually Ubuntu.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I actually switched to Ubuntu directly from Windows back when dapper was the new thing. After using it as a second workstation/server for some time, I ended up switching to use Kubuntu edgy as my primary operating system on all I had of hardware. I quickly started developing some interest in how it all worked behind the scene; upgrading to alpha/beta releases and reporting bugs.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
My more serious involvement started in the beginning of 2007. Ubuntu was changing to apache2 only and all apache1 only modules needed to go away or get updated; I helped investigating possibilities, filing removal reports, sharing my investigations with Debian and taking maintainership in Debian for the modules to be kept, but missing a maintainer. After that I started helping out some more with Kubuntu during the last part of the hardy cycle.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Trying and trying, reading and reading, and asking lots of question. I’ve had some great sponsors to ask, and both the #kubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-motu IRC channel are great places to hang around if you happen to have a packaging question. And searching around wiki.ubuntu.com has also helped me a lot to get started with new things.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Actually be part of making something as great as Kubuntu and Ubuntu! And the friendly atmosphere of course

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Find a problem that really annoys you (not too complex you know) and then try to fix it. Reading up on packaging, patching and more on the wiki and joining #ubuntu-motu (or #kubuntu-devel for kde packages) for asking the questions that the wiki doesn’t answer. Fixing rebuildd FTBFS and helping with merges can also give a good hang of the packaging flow.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I am, back in Denmark. I hang around the IRC channel, help a bit with answering questions and show up at the release parties.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty and Jaunty+1?
Trying to get as many of the kde3 packages replaced with kde4 equivalents; and making the kde packages we ship at release rock! Just upgraded to jaunty on my main computer, and they already rock but let’s have them rock even more!

What do you do in your other spare time?
Studying for a Master in Telecommunication; that really takes a lot of time. Else enjoying life, doing sports and travelling around Thailand (I’m studying on exchange currently). When I come back to Denmark I will start being a scout leader again…

Roderick Greening (rgreening)

Age: 37
Location: St. John’s, Newfoundland Canada
IRC Nick: rgreening

My current desktop is running Kubuntu with the Glassified theme. The picture in the background was taken by me 2 years ago, while visiting my parents. It’s a small inlet, called Deep Cove, and it’s in Musgravetown, Newfoundland, my family’s hometown.

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
Well, it all started back in University, and that would have been around ‘93. I was working in one of the computer labs, and a friend of mine (TC) said he had this cool new OS that I should try out. He indicated it was very UNIX like, and since we were using UNIX servers for most of our Computer classes, it would be useful.

The distribution was Slackware, and I believe it came on approximately 15-20 floppy disks. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent playing around in that environment. What I can tell you is that it was directly responsible for my current career path, and my first full-time job in the computer industry. I maintained a dual boot system for many years at work, just to run Linux for ‘real’ work and windows for everything else I ‘had’ to.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I started using Kubuntu in 2006, though I dabbled with it a little bit earlier than that. Prior to that I was using Gentoo as my main OS, and did so up to about mid 2007.

My main reason for looking into Kubuntu was I had a friend who was quite dissatisfied with Windows. He was constantly having to re-format and re-install his OS to get rid of mal-ware, viruses, and other cruft. I eventually convinced him to test drive Kubuntu along with me. Since then, I have installed Kubuntu for many friends and family members, and they now use Kubuntu as their main OS, and are quite satisfied.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
One day, while using Kubuntu, my Knetworkmanager stopped working. In order to get back online, I needed to install the Ubuntu nm-applet. I decided then to see if there was something I could do to help troubleshoot it. I jumped onto IRC and joined the #kubuntu-devel channel and started asking some questions.

I was amazed at how helpful everyone was, especially Jonathan Riddell, Scott Kitterman and Harald Sitter. These three devs really got me kick-started, and back into development mode. This was during the tail end of the Intrepid development cycle.

To quote Jonathon from his Kubuntu 8.10 release announcement: “Then there’s rgreening who turned up one day and fixes anything anyone asks him to since”. Since then, I have packaged many releases and updates to KDE4, as well as other KDE Universe packages.

I had really good sponsors, who were patient and helped me out a lot. In particular Scott Kitterman was exceptional. On many occasions he offered up little known (at least by me) tidbits on how to streamline my packaging and testing. WIthout him, I do not think I would have applied for MOTU status.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
It was a combination of reading documentation, asking the right questions via IRC devel channels, working with great sponsors (see above) and looking at other peoples work. Having such a large community is definitely a real benefit to Ubuntu. It is quite easy to find the answer to your question, usually within minutes of looking or asking.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
It’s definitely the people. Not only is everyone really knowledgeable, they are also very approachable. Never be afraid to ask a question. It’s how I got to where I am today.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?

1. Don’t be concerned whether you have the required skills. If you can install and use Ubuntu, you can help QA packages, submit bug reports and test drive new releases.
2. Dive right in. The best way to learn is by joining a team you are interested in and helping them, whether it’s testing, writing documentation, etc.
3. Get a mentor to help guide you, and sponsor your work.
4. Have fun.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
There isn’t a LOCO here in Newfoundland, though a couple of us are starting to seriously consider starting one up. I know there is a Linux community here, and it’s been around for a while now, though I believe they mostly use RPM based distros. At any rate, I’m sure I’ll be contacting ‘the Bacon Community’ in the near future, once I get some spare cycles.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty and Jaunty+1?
Well, right now I have been working on packaging KDE 4.2.1, and will also assist in KDE 4.2.2 packaging. Outside of that, there are improvements to KPackageKit I have implemented, and still some additional things to come.

For Jaunty+1 (Karmic), I have a couple of packages I am developing myself, which I would like to see make it into Universe and/or main. There are two applications, which are security related (ufw-kde and clamav-kde) as well as a new card game written in PyQt.

Additionally, I have been thinking about some work in the server-team, and would like to help them develop a package that would help new admins setup a server with proper TCP wrappers, fire-walling, logging, root-kit checking and log analysis. Currently, these tools exist, but you have to install each one and configure separately. I’d like to bundle a set of these apps (meta package) and help the user configure some sane choices. At this point it’s only an idea, but with UDS looming ahead, who knows where it might lead.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Spare time? Oh, you mean IF I had a personal life outside Ubuntu…

Well, I am an amateur photographer. I have a Canon Rebel XT, and a few lenses. I am mostly interested in scenic/landscape photography, but I also dabble in portraits shots.

I also love to read. I have hundreds of books in my personal library, mostly Sci-Fi and fantasy. I am a real big fan of Star Trek, Star Gate, and Forgotten Realms. My collection also includes a substantial number of technical books on programming and networking.

Outside of that, I spend time with my Wife and dog Jewel, and hang with my friends playing Mario Cart (baby Luigi/quacker) and Settlers of Catan (“monopoly wheat”).