PPUApplicationTools

I, Colin King, apply for upload rights for package(s) eventstat, forkstat, health-check, idlestat, powerstat, smemstat, stress-ng, thermald and fwts.

Who I am

I am a Ubuntu member and a Canonical employee and currently working as an Kernel Engineer in the Kernel Team. I have worked on various parts of the kernel subsystem with focus on suspend/resume, BIOS, ACPI, power management and eCryptfs. I developed the firmware test suite as well as tools such as:

I am a Debian maintainer for eventstat, forkstat, health-check, idlestat, powerstat, smemstat, stress-ng and thermald

I write a Ubuntu related blog with postings on kernel and system related hints and tips and get thousands of page impressions per week.

My Ubuntu story

I have been working with open source since the late 1980s and working with Linux since the mid 1990s. I started using Ubuntu back in 2006, and joined Canonical as a Ubuntu Kernel Developer in 2008. I've always enjoyed looking at gnarly hardware related bugs as I am a low-level engineer at heart. I got involved in debugging suspend/resume issues and before long I deep dived into Intel architectures and ACPI. I found that there are many classes of firmware bugs that could be identified programmatically so I wrote the firmware test suite (fwts). My belief is that quality can be improved if developers have access and use quality improving tools. While working on Power Management on 12.04 I developed a powerstat and eventstat to help pin point power issues. Recently I've been thrashing a lot of open source projects with tools such as smatch, cppcheck and also coverity scan to try to find bugs to help improve code quality.

I like working on problems that require deep diving and analysis. I am a firm believer that a bug requires a regression test associated with it to ensure we never see the bug rear it's ugly head ever again in production code. I also believe that developers should always use quality tools to catch obscure programming bugs and that code reviews are required for every patch that gets committed. Quality requires effort and time.

My involvement

Ubuntu Kernel Team - analysis, debugging, fixing bugs, ACPI + BIOS issues, bench-marking, developing tests, checking out kernel performance regressions. Hardware Enablement projects - firmware test suite + looking at BIOS issues that relate to system certification.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

As mentioned above, fwts, eventstat, powerstat, smemstat, forkstat, health-check and stress-ng. I've contributed over 3000 patches to these projects in the past few years. eventstat and powerstat were the first tools that I developed and packaged from scratch in Debian. I have since got upload rights in Debian to these as well as thermald and idlestat which I have recently packaged and supplied a good few fixes upstream for these projects. I also quite pleased with the improved power management that I worked on in Ubuntu 12.04.

I've also contributed to the eCryptfs regression tests. I've also worked on backporting eCryptfs kernel fixes to older releases.

Areas of work

eCryptfs - worked with upstream developers and just recently was given writes to push patches to eCryptfs userland tools.

hardware enablement work - helping to shape, direct, write and improve the firmware test suite. Contributed to > ~1900 patches, fixed numours bugs. Worked to get it to build in Gentoo. Worked with Intel to support their use of fwts. Buy-in from Redhat QA. Community buy-in.

ubuntu kernel team - fixing bugs, pushing fixes upstream, doing analysis on various subsystems to shape config choices for releases.

power management - powerstat, eventstat - main developer with help from Kamal Mostafa on packaging and Debian uploading, with help from Daniel Holbach for uploads into Ubuntu. Been working with Ubuntu QA team on eventstat to improve features to track wakeup event issues over releases.

Things I could do better

I'd like to improve my packaging skills and get more of my various projects into Debian and Ubuntu.

Plans for the future

General

Looking to become a Debian Developer in the near future.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Dodgy applications that suck power. I'm working on various tools and strategies on the ARM based mobile projects to help corner, identify and fix power issues.


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.

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)

General feedback

Colin knows these tools inside out and is the de-facto maintainer. Even bigger packaging changes throughout the releases were always top-notch. I had nothing to complain about. He should definitely have upload rights for them.

Specific Experiences of working together


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Andy Whitcroft

General feedback

Colin is a very exacting engineer. His attention to detail is only matched by his sense of responsibility. I trust him to check, check, and recheck his own work, doubting himself more than any reviewer could ever do.

Colin is basically the maintainer for these packages in Debian, and I recommend him for upload rights for them in Ubuntu.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have personally worked with Colin on patches for the kernel where he is one of the key reviewers for CVE and SRU fixes, his detailed analysis adding to our confidence in those changes. I have also watched him drive the fwts project where his testing oriented approach have helped foster a regression intollerant development model.

Areas of Improvement

Colin needs more experience in packaging side of things. His work with these packages in both Debian and Ubuntu (he has mentors in both) can only help in this area.


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Kamal Mostafa

<kamal@canonical.com> <kamal@debian.org>

General feedback

I served as Colin's Debian sponsor and mentor for his packages: eventstat, powerstat, and thermald. His attention to detail with respect to maintenance of his packages has always been outstanding, and he has a firm understanding of the Ubuntu and Debian package life-cycle. He is extremely careful, and does not hesitate to ask for clarification when needed. His most recent package updates have all been "perfect", passing review with no recommended changes whatsoever.

Colin is now a Debian Maintainer with direct upload rights for those packages in Debian. It makes good sense for him to have the same for Ubuntu.

Specific Experiences of working together

-- kamalmostafa 2014-01-21 08:40:07


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 ===


ColinKing/PPUApplicationTools (last edited 2014-10-06 18:54:59 by cpc3-craw6-2-0-cust180)