DavidSugar
David Sugar
Email: <dyfet AT gnutelephony DOT org>
Location: Cape May Court House, New Jersey
Home Site: GNU Telephony
Launchpad Page: https://launchpad.net/~dyfet/
Background
Starting in the 70's, I was at one time a "Telephone Hobbyist", although fortunately much less known and "sought after" than people contemporary to that period such as John Draper. My initial experience with computing was in my early teens with equipment from Ohio Scientific as well as S-100 CP/M systems. I also at the time developed and sold a BBS system.
In more recent times I was a founder of and the former CTO for Open Source Telecom Corporation, and I currently maintain a number of packages that are officially part of the GNU Project. I have at times also been an official speaker for the Free Software Foundation. Most of the packages I maintain are telephony related, including GNU Bayonne and GNU SIP Witch. While I first started using GNU/Linux when it was a distribution of floppy disks and a 0.12 kernel, and I have worked with a variety of different distributions over the years since then, much of the testing, packaging, integration, and development work for the packages I maintain is currently done using Ubuntu.
Most recently I have been working on encrypted / intercept-free communication systems based on the work of Phil Zimmerman in publishing the ZRTP protocol. Lesser known is my involvement both with helping to develop free software solutions around public standards and free software ethics for the visually impaired, and my work with indigenous communities.
Ubuntu Activity
A GNU Telephony team has been established in Launchpad. The idea was to consolidate and promote the development and use of telephony services within the Ubuntu community, and to use a PPA to offer updated backports for older distributions of Ubuntu of packages I am an upstream maintainer for. I currently am in the process of adding ucommon and GNU SIP Witch to Ubuntu universe for Karmic.
My interest in VoIP and telecommunications is focused on privacy and security, and I am the upstream maintainer for GNU SIP Witch and the GNU ZRTP stack used in Twinkle and SIP Communicator to create secure communication systems. Recently I wrote a GNU Sipwitch Client and Server Howto to help others create secure telephone services using Ubuntu.
Mobile Activity
As part of the Ubuntu Mobile team, I had helped with a number of specifications for Karmic. From UDS I have chosen to help establish voice driven user interface goals for Karmic and later releases, embodied in the Mobile Voice Driven User Interface. I have also chosen to champion the LXDE desktop environment specification. I also wrote a Howto for creating a custom self-booting SD for the iMX51 Babbage boards.
Favorite Quote Today
Information in the computer age is the last genuine free market left on earth except those free markets where indigenous people are still surviving.