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Contact Info

Eric Hammond

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Email: <esh AT ubuntu DOT com>

Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~esh

Contributions to Ubuntu

Summary: Since November 2007 I have been building, maintaining, documenting, promoting, and supporting public virtual machine images for running Ubuntu on Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud).

These Ubuntu AMIs quickly became popular enough that I started a support group for folks using Ubuntu on EC2. Over a thousand have joined the the community and quite a few folks have been joining in the support effort, answering questions, submitting ideas, and even patches for the Ubuntu AMI build tool.

I provide support on the general Amazon EC2 forum and on irc.freenode.net #ubuntu-ec2, #ubuntu-server, and ##aws for both Ubuntu and non-Ubuntu questions. I find that answers to EC2 users' questions can often start with "If you switch to an Ubuntu AMI, you can do this simply with ..." And, it appears that many do try Ubuntu and love it.

I documented how the images are built and have published a build script which others use to build their own custom Ubuntu images on EC2. Parts of this software were used as guidelines in the development of the EC2 plugin for the new Ubuntu vmbuilder software.

I have been working with Canonical testing vmbuilder with the new EC2 plugin including submitting bug reports and patches as well as providing guidance and background on how customers use EC2 in practice. I provide support for the official Ubuntu beta AMIs including answering questions from the community and testing.

I selected Ubuntu as the platform for building the technology of the most recent startups I've been involved with: ThisNext.com, CampusExplorer.com. I run dozens of personal and community service websites on Ubuntu including notlong.com, a popular URL shortener, and Alestic.com, a blog about EC2 and Ubuntu.

I have been running Ubuntu on my personal desktops and production servers since 2005 (Breezy) and used various other Linux distributions prior to that and Unix flavors prior to that all the way back to 1985.

Plans for the Future

I plan to continue supporting and promoting the use of Ubuntu on EC2. It's a beautiful combination that just makes life easier and lets me focus on developing my product instead of on hardware and operating system issues.

Testimonials

MarkShuttleworth provided a testimonial for sharing directly with the regional board.

Eric is a dedicated individual who has brought Ubuntu to many through his hard work creating and supporting Ubuntu on EC2. His advocacy and support for Ubuntu on EC2 have made him a valuable asset to the Ubuntu community, and I appreciate his work to make Ubuntu deployment as effortless as possible. -- nhaines 2008-12-14 08:26:55

Eric has created, maintained and supported some of the first images images of Ubuntu on EC2 and has, in the process, built a community of more than 650 people almost all by himself in about a year (judging by the number of subscribers to his Google group dedicated to it). His advices to the Ubuntu Server Team have been key to understand how to prepare our first official images (currently in beta). Thanks a lot Eric! -- NicolasBarcet 2008-12-18 05:42:33

Eric's work has been key to fostering the Ubuntu on Amazon EC2 community. Both in creating the system images, and more importantly in developing a community of users who are exploring how to use Ubuntu in this new environment. It's important that Free Software (and therefore Ubuntu) is well represented on the new cloud computing platforms such as Amazon EC2, and I look forward to working with Eric to build our capabilities further. -- slgeorge 2024-11-18 10:40:05

Eric has been a tremendous capacity throughout the process of getting Ubuntu onto EC2. He has singlehandedly built an entire community around Ubuntu on EC2 and has also been a great technical help to us in this project. He has my warmest recommendations for Ubuntu membership. -- SorenHansen 2009-01-05 17:54:22

I hardily agree with the other comments. I think we all owe Eric quite a bit for taking on both the technical and community aspects of Ubuntu on EC2. He has shown a willingness to help out on his own with no help from the the broader community. I already consider him a community member and recommend it be made official. --RickClark 2024-11-18 10:40:05

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