MOTUApplication

I, Brian Curtis, apply for MOTU.

Name

Brian Curtis

Launchpad Page

http://launchpad.net/~bcurtiswx

Wiki Page

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BCurtisWX

Who I am

I have been using Linux ever since 2004, I have been using the Ubuntu OS ever since 2007. I became involved with Ubuntu just around the beginning of Gutsy. It's my main OS now both at school and at home.

Community Involvement

  • http://dc.ubuntu-us.org/

    1. I am currently a participant in my Local Community.
  • BugSquad / UbuntuBugControl

    1. I find a great deal of fun in triaging bugs. Immediately after joining the Bug Squad I tried really hard in learning the basics of bug triage so I could help as many people as possible. I found out that the bug triage community has been so helpful to me, and its a privilege of mine to be able to return the favor.
    2. In order to return the favor to the best of my ability, I joined the Bug Control team so I could answer other triagers help requests in making sure the bugs they are triaging are done right and that they learn from this experience.
    3. My community is my job and my colleagues and my family and friends, and I spread Ubuntu and help all of them every chance I get.
  • Ubuntu Membership
    1. I have been an Ubuntu member since 2009. Bug Squad and Bug Control have been one of my main focuses in Ubuntu and for the past few years I have been diving into the Packaging aspect in Ubuntu. I attended the UDS-O in Budapest

My Ubuntu story

My Linux story starts back in Undergraduate College where the students worked with Fedora machines on meteorological forecasts. I was introduced to Ubuntu there and the idea that it was free and I finally didn't have to pay for another operating system in my life. I opened myself up to change and Ubuntu and Linux have since been a major and important part of my daily life and routine. I joined the local community thanks to Mackenzie Morgan (maco) here in Washington, DC USA and with her and the communities help I was able to learn Bug Triage and earn my way towards funding to go to UDS-O in Budapest, Hungary, and most importantly my Ubuntu membership. I spread Ubuntu in my workplace and now almost all (if not all) students use Ubuntu on their desktop.

My involvement

My main work has been with the Ubuntu-Desktop team with any and all desktop/GNOME packages. I have focused on the Empathy suite [empathy, telepathy-*, folks] (everybody has their focus), but as you see in my branches I have touched a lot more than the empathy suite, and didn't want to limit my ability to help the desktop team with just a PPU.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Areas of work

As the previous items show I have focused on packages that the Ubuntu-Desktop team has been involved with. I have focused on the Empathy suite, and I would do more with Telepathy once I am able to sync with debian. I have not limited myself to those packages though. It's been my pleasure to help any of them out at times when they needed an extra hand packaging, and I owe a lot of my understanding to Ken Vandine (ken-vandine) and Sebastien Bacher (seb128) at times when Ken was not around. Although these two may have helped me quite a bit, the rest of the desktop-team has piped in for small questions I've had and they deserve thanks as well.

Things I could do better

I'd like to donate more time to the team, but I'm completing my PhD Dissertation and I hope afterwards I'll have more time. I want to learn better and faster for the newer work items I will encounter through this entire experience, because I always feel like I'm not helping enough even though I'm told a lot that I'm a big help.

Plans for the future

General

  • - Always learning more on a daily basis
  • - More Debian syncs.
  • - Join the Ubuntu-Desktop team
  • - (extreme goal) Get hired by Canonical as a part of the Desktop team.
  • - Attend more UDS

What I like least in Ubuntu

It's really a personal preference, but I'd love Ubuntu to be bleeding edge on a lot of things. I completely understand why this does not happen, but I honestly feel that Ubuntu would gain a better edge in OS's by getting closer to bleeding edge.


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

BCurtisWX/MOTUApplication (last edited 2012-07-18 14:52:51 by pool-74-96-149-214)