Didier Roche (didrocks)

Age: 25
Location: Paris/France
IRC Nick: didrocks

Yeah, I am using a default theme with almost no modification. This is because I have to update my free book (licence CC:BY-SA) every 6 months and the screenshots have to be taken with default wallpaper and configuration. Then… well, I’m lazy and default one is sufficient for me And my real desktop is… ok, it’s not really a desktop but Wi-Fi ROCKS :p

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I started using Linux with Red Hat 6 in 1999. I then really become a regular Linux user since Mandrake 7.0 with a KDE based interface. I used Mandrake until 9.0 release of Mandrake, and then decided to try Debian, and was truly satisfied with it, despite the long configuration time it took to have a working environment (at this epoch, this is no more the case now).

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I was seeking for an easy-to-use and install Linux distribution. I found the “no-name-yet” just a little before the release of October 2004, known as Ubuntu today, and become to take some tests with it and immediately loved it. I have sticked with Ubuntu since and it makes me love the GNOME environment.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Last July, during the RMLL (Libre Software Meeting in France), I spoke with Christophe Sauthier (huats) and he told me he was making some packages for Ubuntu. He presented the process and since then, I decided to get into it and start learning how to package.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Read read (read?) documentation! I never ceased to read documentation, starting from the great resource on Ubuntu wiki and I still do (now that I have finished the “how to secure Debian” and the “Debian reference guide”, I am getting into the “Debian FAQ”, just for fun! Ubuntu, as a derivated distribution of Debian benefits from both distribution huge documentations. I was also part of the mentoring program, and asked a lot and lots of questions to my mentor: Andrea Colangelo, warp10. High five to him! When other/more detailed explanations were needed, just jump to #ubuntu-motu or other Ubuntu channels. Nobody can know everything and that’s where the team is fantastic: you will always find someone who
will be able to help you.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
My favorite part is without any contest, interaction with others. You will find great people, a big bunch of helpful and talentuous developers. With such things, you can discover an new thing/concept everyday. How exciting is to see how far GNU/Linux is today!

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Do not hesitate to jump in! No programming skills are especially required. Everyone can make Ubuntu better and that’s a great opportunity. You can read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek (the first session is available through 5 languages!). Sign for the mentor process if you prefer to have a mentor to guide you through your MOTU journey!

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Yes! I am involved in French ubuntu-fr loco team as a member of the administration team and part of the chair (as the secretary) of ubuntu-fr French non governmental organization. With this, I am participating to French Ubuntu Party as a core organizer and go to various French FOSS meetings in promoting ubuntu, keeping also some relations with the press. Last event we organized was the Ubuntu Global Bug jam in Toulouse and in Paris and we will participate at 3 events in France this month, one of those is Solutions Linux.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty and Jaunty+1?
I will still help in GNOME desktop area in the desktop team (please people from other countries come in! It seems to be a French place there!). On a personal project, I will try to dedicate some time to gchildcare, which will be a simple, user-friendly et secure parental children protection software.

Iulian Udrea (Iulian)

Age: 17
Location: Romania
IRC Nick: iulian

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I have been using GNU/Linux since four years ago. My first distribution was Debian 3.1 Sarge.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since 6.06 Dapper Drake.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I got involved with the MOTU team during the Hardy development cycle. I joined the #ubuntu-{motu,devel} channels on Freenode in December 2007, IIRC. After some time of idling and not saying a word in both channels, I started to look at some bugs in Launchpad and tried to fix some of them. My first patch uploaded to Ubuntu was in March 2008.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I learnt packaging by reading the Debian policy, Packaging Guide from our wiki page and some other excellent documents from the web. Frankly, I cannot remember from where I learnt how Ubuntu teams work. I believe I learnt by reading their wiki pages and talking about them on IRC.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Ouh, that is a very interesting question. My favourite part of working with the MOTU is, obviously the people. I really like how they are interacting with each other and sharing ideas. All I can say is that all of them are really helpful, friendly and it’s just a great feeling working with them. I am really proud that I’m part of this team.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Just dive in. You do not need to know any programming languages by helping out MOTU, but sometimes in may help you when fixing a non-packaging bug. There are many excellent documents from where you can learn packaging. In my opinion, packaging is not so difficult as it looks. It doesn’t take so much time to learn it. Once you learn the basics, it will be piece of cake. You will just need to understand it. Like I said in the previous interview when I wasn’t a MOTU, the hardest step is to get in, once you are in, you will never want to get out, unless you are barmy. Nobody knows everything so do not hesitate to ask questions in the channel or in the mailing list.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Unfortunately, I am not involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
I’m going to focus on merging/syncing as many packages as I can and fix nasty bugs. I started to get involved with the Kernel team as well so other than merging and syncing with Debian I focus on making patches for the kernel team.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Reading. I am a fanatic reader, I read a lot, especially Computer and Science Fiction books. I am also a skater. So if I’m not at home, reading, you can find me in the park, skating and jumping like a barmy boy.

Thierry Carrez (Koon)

Age: 36
Location: In the countryside in the center of France
IRC Nick: Koon

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
My first contact with Linux was in 1994, a Slackware 2.1. Then I installed lots of RedHat (mostly on routers and servers), then in 2003 I switched to Gentoo. It was the first distribution I ran without dual boot on my personal and professional desktop. Gentoo was also the first distro I really contributed to (as manager of their security team).

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I’ve started using Ubuntu in 2006 (Dapper Drake). At that time I had switched jobs and had my first daughter (less free time to spend hacking computers) so I needed a distribution that “just worked”. I picked Ubuntu and never looked back…

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
In 2008 I was hired by Canonical as a member of the server team. I had to learn Debian packaging (I knew how to extract patches from source packages, but never did one). During the Intrepid cycle, amongst otherthings I packaged in universe a WBEM stack and tomcat6 (which ended up in main). At the beginning of the Jaunty cycle my sponsors got a little tired and pressured me to apply

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I started with the Ubuntu Packaging Guide and followed all wiki references. I also participated in the Developer week IRC sessions: something I would recommend to all people interested in development.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
It’s difficult to have a growing community that is elite, friendly and open at the same time. The MOTU have managed to create and maintain such a community, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Get involved, it’s easier than you think. There is nothing magic in maintaining a distribution: once you learn the basics, the sky is your only limit. Join the developer week IRC sessions !

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I live in the middle of nowhere so there is no local LUG… but I plan to get more involved with the French LoCo.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
I’m investigating solutions for packaging larger Java software into Ubuntu, and I want to push an easy solution to put /etc under revision control.

What do you do in your other spare time?
I’m now the father of two young daughters and that takes most of my other spare time. In my other other spare time, I ride horses and do digital photography.

Stefan Ebner (sebner)

Age: 18
Location: Hermagor, Austria
IRC Nick: sebner

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
A friend of mine and myself were somehow the “geeks” in our school class and he told me something about suse so we tried suse 9.0. I’m still wondering that I didn’t remove the windows partition on my parents pc accidently but since it was new and strange I deleted it some weeks after I installed it, also because the DSL-modem wasn’t working. Later we tried 9.1 with the same result.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I installed Dapper Drake (version 6.06) in august 2006. I sometimes had a windows partition but since the installation ubuntu was my default system.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
In October 2007 I joined the ubuntu-motu channel on freenode and discovered that Andrea Veri (bluekuja) was not living that far away so I talked a little bit to him and he convinced me to start contributing. After buying a new laptop he started mentoring me from the 1.1.2008 on

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
The different Packaging guides (Debian/Ubuntu ones). Looking at examples on REVU. Through my work on many merges. Hanging around on IRC tells you a lot about the how the teams work and don’t forget about the wiki pages.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Of course the people. It’s often just great fun to work with them and you can learn a lot talking to them. Besides you have the great feeling to give something back.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Well, as in many interviews already pointed out: Don’t be shy and just ask if you need help. Looking at the wikipages, doing merges and syncs and upload stuff to REVU is a great way to learn how you can contribute to ubuntu.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
In the past I was part of the german ubuntuforum team but stepped back in favour of concentrating to become a MOTU. In the future I’ll help the new Austrian Locoteam and forum to grow.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
I’ll concentrate on C# apps which includes packaging new ones and merges and syncs existing ones from Debian. As I’m MOTU now I’ll also sponsor the work of others besides my own.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Hmm? spare time? what? I’d say nexuiz.

Nathan Handler (nhandler)

Age: 16
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
IRC Nick: nhandler

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
My first introduction to Linux was with a Slax live cd. That was sometime in 2005. I used the cd a couple of times, but never actually installed it to my computer. During the summer of 2006, I decided to install Linux as my primary operating system. I tried Suse and Fedora before trying Ubuntu. Ubuntu had the best support for my hardware, and a great online community.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I have been using Ubuntu for a little over 2 years. I started with Dapper Drake, but updated right away to Edgy Eft.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I started to get involved with the MOTU team during the Gutsy Gibbon development cycle. I began by patching some of the bitesize bugs on Launchpad. I did not do anything MOTU-related during the Hardy Heron development cycle. However, in the Intrepid Ibex developement cycle, I really started to get serious about working towards becoming a MOTU. I performed a lot of merges and syncs, and continued to patch bugs on Launchpad.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Emmet Hikory (persia) helped guide me when I first got involved. He helped teach me the basics of patching and some of the development processes. The many guides and irc logs on the wiki were also a great help. Almost every MOTU-related task has been documented on the wiki. I also can not forget to mention the IRC channels. They are filled with MOTUs and other Ubuntu users who helped answer all of my questions.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
My favorite part of working with the MOTU is that there is always something new to learn. When you master one thing (if that is even possible), there is always always something else out there for you to learn.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Spend time on IRC. IRC is one of the most valuable resources available. Not only is it full of thousands of people that are willing to help guide you on your way, but it also leads to many new friendships.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I am currently not involved with the Chicago LOCO. However, I have worked with many of the LOCO members over IRC.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
Now that I am a MOTU, I am going to be devoting a lot of time to sponsoring patches from other Ubuntu contributors. I will also be reviewing more packages on REVU. I also want to get involved with Kubuntu.

What do you do in your other spare time?
When I am not at school or doing MOTU-related tasks, I am usually working on one of the many Perl scripts that I’ve started. For me, programing helps me think logically and relax.

Stéphane Graber (stgraber)

Age: 18
Location: Sherbrooke, QC, CA
IRC Nick: stgraber

one thin client with a 22" screen, another with a dual-head setup and my laptop with a standard desktop install

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using it for almost 9 years now. My first distro was Mandrake Linux, I then switched between distros for a few years including Gentoo, Corel Linux, Caldera, LFS, Slackware, Red Hat and Debian to finally use Debian and then switch to Ubuntu.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since Warty.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
My first package to be uploaded to the archive was pastebinit a command line pastebin client, this one was uploaded on the 7th of December 2006 (feisty).

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I mainly learned how Ubuntu works by discussing with people on IRC and reading some wiki pages. Being around for a long time I actually saw most of these team structures being created.

For the packaging, I initially simply read the Ubuntu Packaging Guide, then followed the REVU process doing changes when needed.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Being able to get my favorite applications directly in Ubuntu, fixing some others and helping some others to do the same. And of course hours long discussions on IRC

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Just go on IRC, ask people and read some wiki pages. Packaging is not as hard as it may look.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I recently moved to Canada where I’m not involved in any LoCo but I’m still one of the admin of the Ubuntu Switzerland LoCo team. My role is now to mainly follow the discussions on the mailing-list and discuss on IRC.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
Improving LTSP to get desktop-like experience, getting ltsp-cluster uploaded to Universe, improve a bit iTalc’s integration with LTSP and getting more educational packages uploaded/improved for Edubuntu.

What do you do in your other spare time?
I work on upstream LTSP and on some of my personal projects (pastebinit and a few others). Yeah, I don’t really do anything beside working on open source projects

Guillaume Martres (smarter)

Guillaume Martres

Guillaume’s desktop

Age: 15
Location: France (near the border with Switzerland)
IRC Nick: smarter (an anagram of my last name )

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using Linux for 3 years and a half now. My first distro was Kaella, a Knoppix based Live-CD adapted for French users. That’s probably why I like so much Debian-based distros and KDE .

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I’ve started using Ubuntu 3 years ago, as soon as I got a laptop.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I had been wanting to help with Ubuntu development for some times, and finally one day (a year and a half ago, if I remember correctly) I joined some developers channels on IRC(which I had only used a few times before, mostly for providing support for users or asking questions) and asked how I could help.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
The French wiki and the English one were really helpful for learning packaging. I also had a lot of comments on my packages on IRC and REVU which helped me making better packages. I learned how the teams works mostly by watching discussions on IRC.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Learning new things and working with great people .

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Don’t hesitate to join development channels on IRC to ask questions!

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I’m one of the administrator of the French forum, but never participated in any local event related to Ubuntu.

What are you going to focus on in Jaunty?
I’m currently learning C++/Qt and PyQt. In Jaunty, I hope to be able to improve our distros tools(like the upgrade manager or the language selector). I will also focus on making sure KDE4 is as good or better than KDE3 for the few features that we still miss from KDE3 .

What do you do in your other spare time?
I read a lot, I also play quite a lot of video games.

James Westby (james_w)

James Westby

Age: 24
Location: Bristol, UK
IRC Nick: james_w

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I’ve been using Linux for around 4 years now, starting with Debian.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
I’ve been using Ubuntu for around 9 months.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
I got involved with MOTU after UDS Hardy in Boston. I was invited to UDS as an upstream developer, and got to know a few MOTUs there. After that I started working on some Ubuntu development, mainly on things that benefited Ubuntu and Debian, as I was involved a little with Debian development. I have been concentrating more on Ubuntu for a while now, as the community was more welcoming, and it’s easier to find a place for yourself as it is smaller.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I learnt packaging while working in Debian. It was mainly a case of getting stuck in and googling a lot when I got stuck. I learnt a bit about Ubuntu from the UDS, especially from Daniel Holbach, Stefan Potyra and Reinhard Tartler. The rest was just looking at the wiki and mainly asking questions.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Two things really, firstly the community, it’s a pleasure to work with MOTU and other people involved with Ubuntu development. Secondly, making a great distribution even better is a great feeling.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Just get stuck in. Find a bug that annoys you in a package you use and try to fix it. Often this is more about looking in the right places and talking to the right people than knowing how to code. Also, ask questions, people will help when they can, and if you don’t get a response then it’s probably a hard question, and so fixing it will be even more satisfying.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
I’m a little involved with Ubuntu UK, but I don’t do as much as I would like.

What are you going to focus on in Intrepid?
For the little that is left I’m going to focus mainly on fixing as many bugs as possible. I’m also going to be looking for the most important things to focus on for Jaunty.

What do you do in your other spare time?
Drink cider and dance like a fool.

Andrea Colangelo (warp10)

Age: 28
Location: Bugnara, Italy
IRC Nick: warp10

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
I first tried Linux in 1995, when I found a Red Hat 4.2 CD within a computer magazine I buyed monthly. I didn’t know anything about Linux and Free Software, but I tried it and was impressed from the  philosphy behind it.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
The first release I tried was Breezy Badger. Shipit still keeps my request for CDs, submitted in october 2005: it was great for me, since I had no broadband access at that time. I tried it from time to time,
mostly as a live CD, since I was pretty happy with Debian. A day I decided to give a try to Fedora, but didn’t liked it too much. Instead of reinstalling Debian, I downloaded Edgy Eft and love arose. Since then I use Ubuntu as my only, unique OS (apart from many other distros in my VMs).

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
My first run with MOTU was in May 2007, but a series of troubles brought me away from the world of Ubuntu development. I tried again in October, on the edge of Gutsy release, when I sent an email to Cesare Tirabassi asking for a mentor. He drove my first steps in #ubuntu-motu and helped me uploading my first debdiffs. I still remember the first email in the hardy-changes Mailing List bringing my name! Then, the MOTU mentoring reception assigned Martin Pitt as my mentor, and the journey begun!

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
Well, learning packaging is an hard process. There isn’t a single “thing” that will teach you everything. My mentor has been an important parte of my apprenticeship, I encourage prospective developers to ask for one. #ubuntu-motu is an incredible resource. I asked a lot of things there to other MOTUs and contributors, and probably I have never been unanswered. Really, the best way to learn packaging is… packaging! Documentation and guides are a great starting point, but dirting your hands with stuff is always the best way.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
Well, the feeling that you help shaping a distribution used by millions of people, and that your work can make happier even a single person in the world, it is a wonderful feeling. Further, the MOTU family is awesome. When you join #ubuntu-motu you feel at home. That’s a beautiful sensation!

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Don’t be afraid to ask. Sometimes, even skilled programmers don’t know nothing about packaging. We have a lot of processes, procedures and even non-written rules that we should follow, and nobody knows all of them. Second advice: keep trying. Sometimes bugs are really nasty and fixing them is difficult. Or maybe the debdiff you provided has been rejected by a sponsor, altough you thought it was perfect. Well, don’t surrender, choose another bug (or address your sponsor’s remarks) and keep up the good work.

What are you going to focus on in Intrepid?
Currently I am mostly involved in sponsoring the work from our contributors. We have a lot of good guys who are helping a lot, and I enjoy uploading their works on the archives. After the Feature Freeze I will concentrate my efforts on QA activities. That’s probably the best period of the release cycle to tackle that. We always need for more and more people to do some good QA, so everyone is warmly  welcomed to join.

Favorite quote?
I don’t have a favourite one among the many that I love. Anyway, thinking to the Ubuntu world, this one always come to my mind: “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”. People that are not Star Trek Fans can better understand its meaning here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDIC#Philosophy

What do you do in your other spare time?
Ubuntu and my girlfriend occupy most of it. Other than that: friends, cinema, Jazz music and good books.

Nicolas Valcárcel (nxvl)

Age: 24
Location: Lima – Perú
IRC Nick: nxvl

How long have you used Linux and what was your first distro?
4 or 5 years from now on, i started with RedHat, i tried it for a few months, then i started testing a lot of distros (gentoo, fedora, conectiva, madrake) and finally found debian, which i used for almost a year until ubuntu shows up, then i switched and never left the distro.

How long have you been using Ubuntu?
Since Warty Warlog.

When did you get involved with the MOTU team and how?
Almost a year ago. I always wanted to contribute back to the FOSS Community doing some developments, and since i was an ubuntu user, one day i came into the web page, the saw the “Get involved” link, clicked on it, and that was the point of no return. I started doing some merges on the early hardy release cycle, then get involved on the server team, where i’ve been doing most of my work lately.

What helped you learn packaging and how Ubuntu teams work?
I started reading the packaging guide, recipes was also a good help, but the key of my learn process was the MOTU community, i find a lot of lovely and helpful people that were always there to answer my questions, my lovely sponsors, who, with a lot of patience checked my patches and point me to my errors and/or best practices on how to solve things, there is where i really learned about the ubuntu work.

What’s your favorite part of working with the MOTU?
That it a huggy community!! All the people involved are helpful, lovely and doesn’t hesitate on showing their love. They also can point you at your errors in a really polite way, but they will also told you when you did a good work, and i find that awesome.

Any advice for people wanting to help out MOTU?
Jump in now! “I will do it tomorrow” is a lie, if you want to start help, start now, why to wait until tomorrow? You will find a lot of helpful people who can guide you on your process. I swear it would be an awesome experience.

Are you involved with any local Linux/Ubuntu groups?
Yes! I’m part of the Peruvian LoCo Council where i try to get more people involved on the ubuntu development giving some talks in local conferences while i can.

What are you going to focus on in Intrepid?
I’ve been working on Server Usability, being that easier ways to manage your servers, since there is a big barrer for Windows sysadmins to switch to Linux, but as it is a hard work (and actually a lot) and i
don’t have the free time i wanted to have it won’t be ready for intrepid, but we already have some of it pieces getting into shape!

What do you do in your other spare time?
Spare time? What’s that? I actually work at PriceWaterhouseCoopers as an intern (i used to be senior consultant in the past on a full time job), i’m also finishing the university and have a wonderful girlfriend who take almost all of my free time . I also love to hang out with my friends, having some beers and stuff, and on summers i love to go to the beach and surf when i can, but there is not a lot of other spare time for me now