DylanMccall

Revision 37 as of 2010-01-29 03:34:19

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Launchpad

http://launchpad.net/~dylanmccall

IRC

dylanmccall / picklesworth (irc.freenode.net)

Jabber

dylanmccall@jabber.org

Forums

http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=68780

Email

<dylanmccall@gmail.com>

Web log

http://dylanmccall.blogspot.com

About me

Hi! My name is Dylan McCall. I'm a student, 20 years old, from Vancouver, Canada. I am working on my first year right now at Simon Fraser University, leading in to a degree program involving HCI or somewhere thereabouts with some robotics and fancy software development thrown into the mix. (Okay, really I have no idea where I'm going, but learning is awesome).

I have been enamoured by Ubuntu and happily following its development since Dapper, led here by some kind folks on the DSLinux project's forum. 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 have trouble claiming outstanding aptitude in a particular field (the more I know the more I realize I don't), but I have lots of experience in web design and programming. People also say I am good at writing. That 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 want to make free software a big part.

“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. Ultimately, it should make Ubuntu more fun and more interesting by fixing the common misunderstandings in advance and showing people some of the great things they can do.

Ubuntu contributions

I post on the forums. I don't have a schedule or a particular objective (some people are really amazingly generous there!), but I think I am generally helpful and informative. When a web search gives me an old forum thread without an answer, I like to answer it if I can. Even if the year-later response won't help the asker, it helps anyone else who finds the same thread.


I came up with the Day of Ubuntu time-lapsed desktop background, 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 checked licensing details).


I have lots of little patches scattered around the world. Most recent are this one for gnome-activity-journal, and this one for Empathy. My patches aren't always perfect ideas. I like making my points with working code, and I think the presence of a running example can really help the flow of ideas.


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 make bug fixing a routine, especially with things like 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 Smile :)

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


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