2011 Ubuntu Technical Board Nomination

I was quite surprised and humbled to learn from DanielHolbach this morning that I had been nominated to the 2011 Ubuntu Technical Board elections. (I hold each of the current board members in such lofty regards, that the thought of filling their shoes is really quite intimidating!) I've been an Ubuntu user since 2006, joining Canonical's Ubuntu Server Team in February 2008, and becoming an Ubuntu MOTU and Core Developer in the following year. I live and breathe Ubuntu, running on nearly every device in my possession, and having donated numerous others to friends, families, and schools. Ubuntu is much, much more than a job to me -- I spend countless hours working on the project, both "on the clock" and "off". I firmly believe that the Ubuntu Code of Conduct is one of the most important documents in modern Internet social interaction, and that the Ubuntu Community is its leading bastion to the rest of the world. I hope to live and work and interact by the principles therein. I would be delighted and honored to serve on the Ubuntu Technical Board.

Ubuntu Contributions

Community Tools

• The Ubuntu Manpage Repository

• The Ubuntu Developer Documentation Search

• The search engine used by help.ubuntu.com

Jaunty Development (Proposals)

• Security

  • Encrypted swap space by default

  • Encrypted home directories (option when doing adduser)

  • SELinux/AppArmor protection of EncryptedPrivateDirectory

  • UI for Encrypted Private Directory configuration management

  • bogosec

• Platform

  • IscsiInitiator: iSCSI support in the installer

  • SwapfileAtInstallation: swapfiles support in the installer

• Server
  • Green Computing initiatives

    • dynamic power capping

    • suspend/hibernate and resume-by-wake-on-lan for servers

  • InitScriptStatusActions: determining if a service is running or not

  • conmux
  • setup bridged network for kvm (in ubuntu-virt-server?)

Intrepid Development

• EncryptedPrivateDirectory: encrypted ~/Private directories in each user's home

• BootDegradedRaid: booting from a degraded RAID

• InitScriptStatusActions: determining if a service is running or not

• Virtualization (backed up Soren for a bit): HAL/PolicyKit enablement of /dev/kvm, kvm/qemu evdev fixes, virtio fixes
• Per-user editor selection (select-editor) in debianutils

• Working with Canonical's ISV Partners for the Ubuntu Server

Hardy Development

• InitScriptStatusActions: determining if a service is running or not

• ISO testing
• Hardware enablement and certification testing

• Working with Canonical's ISV Partners for the Ubuntu Server

General Contributions

Bugs

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/~kirkland

Packaging

• https://launchpad.net/~kirkland/+packages

Debian Efforts

• debianutils select-editor - created a patch to support a per-user default editor selector interface (select-editor) and tying that into Debian's sensible-editor

• cron sensible-editor

• lsb-base status_of_proc

• ltp maintenance (proposed)

• Bugs reported / patches submitted:
  • 470091, 482284, 482774, 483285, 488275, 489830, 490095, 490233, 492126, 492131, 492138, 498492

Upstream Maintainer

I have authored and continue to maintain the following open source projects:

• byobu - https://launchpad.net/byobu

• eCryptfs - https://launchpad.net/ecryptfs

• update-motd - https://launchpad.net/update-motd

• screenbin - https://launchpad.net/screenbin

• Musica - https://launchpad.net/musica

• Pictor - https://launchpad.net/pictor

• Lynx-Web-App - https://launchpad.net/lynx-web-app

• BogoSec - http://launchpad.net/bogosec

• Ubuntu Manpage Repository - http://manpages.ubuntu.com

• Ubuntu Documentation Search - http://people.ubuntu.com/~kirkland/search.html

Upstream Projects

I have previously contributed functionality to the following upstream projects:

• Linux (kernel) - audit subsystem (comparators), SELinux labels

• Audit (Linux audit userspace subsystem) - comparators

• Yaboot (PowerPC bootloader) - software RAID, bootonce

• Anaconda (Red Hat/Fedora installer) - software RAID for PowerPC, incremental ISO integrity check

• Autotest (automated testing framework) - ltp-diff, conmux

• LTP (Linux Test Project) - various tests for EAL certification

Publications

• Linux Software RAID - http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/library/os-ltc-filesystems/Linux-Software-RAID-Tutorial.pdf

• Bogo Sec - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-bogosec.html

• Linux system auditing by example (acknowledged for code) - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-security-audit.html

Community Networking

Sponsors

I would like to thank the following people for sponsoring my uploads:

• AdamConrad, BryceHarrington, ChuckShort, ColinWatson, emgent, EvanDandrea, JamieStrandboge, KeesCook, LaMontJones, LukeYelavich, MartinPitt, MathiasGug, MatthiasKlose, SorenHansen, SteveLangasek

Ubuntu Membership Endorsements

I support Dustin's quest to become a Ubuntu member. He has showed alot of knowledge and experience that I appreciate. He would be a good member of the community -- ChuckShort (zul)

Dustin's done great work, and he's a quick learner. Big +1 from me as well. -- KeesCook (kees)

I'm happy that I get to work with Dustin every day. He's very enthusiastic about Ubuntu and I'd certainly consider him ubuntu member material. -- SorenHansen

Ubuntu MOTU Endorsements

Dustin has been a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable Ubuntu developer for several months now, and I have had long and great discussions with him. He mastered the day-to-day packaging arts and never hesitates to ask for advice when in doubt. He has clear goals for the server area and is working on them consistently. I am happy to advocate him to become a MOTU. -- MartinPitt (pitti)

I'm a advocate of Dustin gaining MOTU privileges. He's conscientious and has a good knack for finding well thought out compromises when weighing conflicting needs. I've been very happy with the quality the packaging work I've seen. -- KeesCook (kees)

I've been following Dustin's work on several projects and have been impressed with how he not only solves a given problem, but looks for ways to solve that entire class of problems. I suspect he'll be a huge asset on the MOTU team. -- BryceHarrington (bryce)

Dustin is one of the key member of the Ubuntu Server team. He has excellent ideas for improvements and always discusses them with other developers. He is able to produce technical solutions of very high quality. I highly recommend him for being part of MOTU. -- MathiasGug (mathiaz)

I work with Dustin on a day to day basis and have sponsored several of his packages. His work is of high quality, and he also possesses two of most important traits for being a good Ubuntu developer/contributor: he asks questions (while critically accepting the answers) and learns from his past efforts. I whole-heartedly recommend Dustin for MOTU. -- JamieStrandboge (jdstrand)

I've sponsored some of Dustin's changes and given some advice on his manual page repository work. Generally speaking his work has been of good quality and he's taken on board comments from others quickly and without fuss. I think he knows his way around by now and I'd be happy to recommend him as a MOTU. -- ColinWatson (cjwatson)

Ubuntu Core Developer Endorsements

I've sponsored many of Dustin's uploads to "main", and I've been very happy with his work. As I said for his MOTU application, he's conscientious, and that's important. In addition to being familiar with the workflows and schedules of Ubuntu, Dustin knows when to ask for help. His work in the initramfs code has me convinced he knows how to be effective when touching so many subsystems at the same time. I'd be very happy to see him with "main" upload privileges. -- KeesCook (kees)

I've also sponsored several of Dustin's uploads to "main", and am happy with his work. Dustin is driven to good work, has learned a lot about Debian packaging and Ubuntu processes, and asks questions when something isn't clear. I've worked with him quite a bit with his ecryptfs-utils work, and I can say he takes constructive criticism well, stands up for what he believes is right, and works well with the community. All of these qualities are very important for an Ubuntu Core Developer. -- JamieStrandboge (jdstrand)

My comments for Dustin's MOTU application stand for his core-dev application as well. He's done a good deal of work with me and others on server-relevant components of the installer, in which he's shown competence at finding his way around difficult code and care in asking for help when he needs it. He doesn't tend to make the same mistakes twice. I think he'd make a fine core developer. -- ColinWatson (cjwatson)

I welcome Dustin to become a core developer for the same reasons I cheered him to become a MOTU. His energy towards solving problems properly, and the breadth of his activities have done much good for Ubuntu so far. The packages I sponsored for him were good, discussions about them were at a high problem-oriented level which happen between all developers, and weren't about packaging glitches etc. at all. -- MartinPitt (pitti)

Dustin is one of the most amazing developers it's been my pleasure to work with on Ubuntu. He attacks with gusto the kinds of problems that have always annoyed me but that I've never gotten around to fixing. When he doesn't know something, he knows to ask - and he never has to ask twice. I see no reason for there to be any barriers to his stellar contributions to packages in main. -- SteveLangasek (vorlon)