Ubuntu Wiki

About me

Always a big fan of free software, I have been happily using Ubuntu and following its development process since Dapper. I have spent a lot of that time just exploring the intricacies of the community, the reason and logic behind many facets of this project.

I like to tinker with free software, exploring its strengths and weaknesses in a practical sense to get a feel for where things are and where they can go.

I hate to claim aptitude in a particular field (the more I know the more I realize I don't), but I do a lot of web design and programming. People say I am good at writing, which is a good thing, I guess, because I seem to do a lot of it...

I am a big fan of the art and business of game development. It's always been a dream of mine. I hope to get back to it one of these days. When I do I'll have lots of awesome free software to make it happen!

“I didn't want to be a barber anyway. I wanted to be... a lumberjack! Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!”

Ubuntu contributions in summary

Upon realizing that I should only have written 2-3 lines for my membership application

I created (and am maintaining) the slideshow (ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu) which plays during Ubuntu's installation. My goal is to give new users a friendly, reassuring introduction to Ubuntu that corrects certain misconceptions and demonstrates things they may not expect to see. Ultimately, it should make life more interesting for support people by fixing the common issues in advance.

Ubuntu contributions

I came up with the Day of Ubuntu slideshow wallpaper, a compilation of the beautiful Dawn of Ubuntu wallpaper and three variants, which has been virally spreading - slowly but surely - about the community. (Really, I keep seeing its name appear in weird places). Of course, the art itself is the best part, and the creators are credited appropriately (along with carefully clarified licensing details).

I am maintaining the slideshow that runs during Ubuntu's desktop installation process, simply named ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu. It is an ongoing project, with lots of excitement and anticipation going in to Lucid. For this cycle, I am carrying out some changes so that derivatives (such as Kubuntu and UNR) can ship their own slideshows without needing to maintain different source packages.

I subscribe to a lot of mailing lists for a reason! I like to know what is going on, and I am known to drop in to discussions from time to time so I can present some sparkles of information about the outside world that were previously not considered.

Future plans

I will definitely be maintaining ubiquity-slideshow for the foreseeable future. After Lucid the project should cool off a bit, although some new design ideas may pop up and I will definitely be keeping the slides up to date with the latest information. It has been an awesome learning experience so far about how to (with many hands-on lessons in how not to) run an open source project when contributors start appearing. At some point I hope to write about the experience and what I have learned.

I am feeling very confident working in this environment now, so I am ready to branch out in some new directions! In particular, I intend to contribute more fixes for bug reports, especially for the 100 Papercuts project. I have also been following the Mallard project, which looks like an awesome step towards bringing free software documentation to its full potential. I want to help move documentation over to Mallard, so remind me if I forget to.

A big project I am going to blog about soon (once ubiquity-slideshow's deadlines are clear) is called Aether. It is my plan to fit applications' data together (in the GUI sense) over a natural common layer that goes beyond the file system. Simpler than it sounds, I promise; it's really very pretty

I like the idea that tiny, powerful things, can be added together to make Ubuntu shine. It seems to fit with the Unix philosophy and the amazingly diverse community of individuals that we have here.

CategoryHomepage