MOTUApplication

I, Dave Jones, apply for MOTU.

Name

Dave Jones

IRC

waveform (Freenode, OFTC)

Launchpad Page

https://launchpad.net/~waveform

Wiki Page

DaveJones

I am applying to speed up the movement of updates (largely Raspberry Pi related) into the Ubuntu archive, as an alternative to expanding my ever-growing Pi PPU.

Who I am

I am the author of a few open source packages, and a contributor to several others—most with some relation to the Raspberry Pi (rpi-lgpio, structa, GPIO Zero, pibootctl, picamera, piwheels, picraft, pisense, the Sense HAT Emulator, etc. etc.). Since 2019, I have been a software engineer within the Canonical Foundations Team where I'm primarily responsible for (surprise!) things related to our Raspberry Pi images—including the boot chain, configuration, firmware packages, and new hardware enablement.

My Ubuntu story

Previously on "Dave's Ubuntu Story"

And now, on Dave's Ubuntu Story...

I've been using Linux for slightly more than half my life at this point and what little beard I have is substantially grey (but I don't complain because it now constitutes the majority of my hair). For the last three years (and change), I've been a member of the Foundations team (a fact in no way related to the hair situation cough). In this time, I have cultivated a complex love/hate relationship with Debian packaging, becoming substantially more skilled at it (not hard, given the level I brought), while still occasionally managing to forget the minutiae like including bug numbers.

I've managed (and will continue to manage) several complex merges of relatively significant packages (on certain platforms) including u-boot, initramfs-tools, flash-kernel, sbuild, dbus, etc.

My involvement

Examples of my work

Upload History

Available from udd, but a small selection is presented here:

As to why I'm asking for MOTU, an increasing number of Pi-specific packages live there:

Rather than expand my existing PPU to cover ever-expanding portions of universe (and constantly harrassing archive admins for such alterations), it seems more prudent to apply for MOTU.

Areas of work

  • I work with the release team on all pi-related Ubuntu releases to perform hardware specific testing, write release notes, and keep the Raspberry Pi imager up to date with available images.

  • I frequently work with the Devices Certification team on hardware enablement or on chasing down regressions in existing supported devices.
  • I worked with the desktop and server teams during Groovy on the establishment of an official Ubuntu desktop image for the Raspberry Pi, and on the creation of per-device seed for our Raspberry Pi images (to stem the ever-rising tide of pi-related hacks in livecd-rootfs). In subsequent releases I have worked with both teams on issues specific to the Pi images.

Things I could do better

  • Packaging. Always packaging. I have come to accept this will likely never change, but if one day I manage to find some time to re-learn enough Perl to patch Lintian to remind me to include at least one bug number in any given changelog, it will be a Good Day.

Plans for the future

General

  • Keep expanding hardware support for the Raspberry in Ubuntu. This means more stuff in universe!
  • Try and upstream some more of this. To be fair, I've prepped salsa repos for the vast majority of the stuff I've been pushing into universe. I just need to overcome my fear and loathing of Debian's BTS and file the bugs...
  • Moar packaging. And perhaps begin to understand the myriad subtleties of archive maintenance

  • Keep improving my merge tooling (it's nearly useful for other people but could really do with translation into something less crazy than bash)

  • Improve Ubuntu's Pi-specific tooling. With raspi-config now vaguely cleaned-up and made as Ubuntu-compatible as I can make it, it's time to consider something more Ubuntu focused

What I like least in Ubuntu

The (lack of) quality of certain snaps. No previewing of comments in Launchpad (though I'm generally very fond of Launchpad, especially its rendering speed on my Pi!).

And I'll copy'n'paste my docs note from the last application:

Our documentation is, to put it mildly, "lacking" in certain areas. As a self-confessed documentation nerd this is something that irks me greatly, and that I intend to correct. However, this is a long term project and involves several tricky steps ("understand packaging to the point of being 'an authority'", "understand the voodoo behind archive maintenance", "convince world+dog that markdown is only barely adequate for documentation and that sphinx is the One True Documentation System", etc. etc.)

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.

Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak

General feedback

My general feedback is: why isn't Dave a core dev already?

In all seriousness, Dave is an excellent Ubuntu developer that demonstrates day by day his devotion to Ubuntu, not only in the Raspberry Pi sphere. He has all the tools and experience required to be a Core Developer, not to mention a MOTU. Dave knows all the processes and procedures, and I'm certain he will use these powers only to improve Ubuntu as a whole.

Granting upload rights for Dave would unblock a lot of his new initiatives that currently get stalled because of the sponsorship process.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have sponsored 74 uploads for Dave, most of which were related to Raspberry Pi. I don't remember a single time where I would not be satisfied with Dave's packages. (bloody hell, I do ... -- Dave)

Areas of Improvement

One. He should have applied for MOTU/Core Dev earlier.

William 'jawn-smith' Wilson

General feedback

I've never had an easier decision deciding whether to endorse a candidate for upload rights.

I've sponsored quite a few Raspberry Pi packages for Dave. See https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?render=html&sponsor=William*Wilson&sponsor_search=name&sponsoree=Dave+Jones&sponsoree_search=name

Dave's packaging is always very well done. He is an extremely detail-oriented person, and has even taught me a few things about packaging!

If there's anything that Dave doesn't know (a rare occurence), he never hesitates to ask and knows where to find the right information.

Specific Experiences of working together

See the list of sponsorships I've done before. Most impressive in this list is the number of packages that Dave created completely from scratch. This includes the unicorn hat packages, pyboard-rshell, and micropython-mpremote. The packaging for rpi-lgpio also has some quirks that Dave handled very nicely.

Occasionally I have found some minor details in Dave's packaging that need some corrections. I've requested version number changes and including bug numbers in changelogs, and Dave fixed them right away. Most of the packages I've reviewed for him are frustratingly perfect though.

Areas of Improvement

  • I second the opinion of sil2100 that Dave should have become MOTU earlier, or possibly apply for core-dev instead!

  • I don't think Dave has done a transition single-handedly, but I'm confident in his ability to learn these details. Having MOTU rights would allow him to work transitions more easily before applying to core-dev. (yup, I've never handled a transition and I'm in no rush to start! -- Dave)

Lukas 'slyon' Märdian

General feedback

Giving appropriate upload rights to Dave should be a nice value add for Ubuntu, and be visible mostly in the Raspberry Pi and Foundations areas.

Dave is very knowlegeable, understands Ubuntu's processes and puts lots of attention to details. He does not hesitate to ask for advice if unsure and is very open in helping others getting along. He's an experienced Ubuntu developer, just lacking proper upload rights!

Specific Experiences of working together

I've sponsored a bunch of merges for Dave, some of which became a sync after Dave's investigation, dropping some maintenance burden. Notably the recent dbus 1.14.0-2ubuntu1 merge for Kinetic, which was nicely prepared as a git-ubuntu style merge. Dave made it very easy for the reviewer to understand the changes, using a well organized commit history.

Areas of Improvement

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.''

## Full list of sponsored packages can be generated here:

##  https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi

=== Areas of Improvement ===

CategoryMOTUApplication

DaveJones/MOTUApplication (last edited 2022-11-08 17:15:17 by waveform)