I, Felix Geyer, apply for MOTU.

Who I am

I'm 22 years old computer science student from Karlsruhe, Germany.

My Ubuntu story

My involvement

I've been using Linux since 2006 starting with Fedora Core. Then around a year later I switched to Ubuntu Feisty.
After having packaged new upstream versions of several applications for a few friends and myself, I started contributing to Ubuntu in 2009.
In May 2010 I have become a (K)Ubuntu member.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

• Firefox KDE integration

  • I worked on getting the Firefox KDE integration from openSUSE into Ubuntu.
    This includes preparing the patches for Firefox, packaging kmozillahelper and fixing a few bugs upstream.

• VirtualBox

  • Last year I have fixed a few bugs in the Ubuntu virtualbox-ose package and forwarded them to Debian. A few weeks later I have been invited to join the Debian VirtualBox team. Since then I do all the packaging work directly in Debian and regularly merge it to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu-Debian diff of virtualbox-ose is now much smaller than it used to be, but there are some changes left that can't be integrated into Debian (e.g. the apport hook).

• libstdc++5
  • The libstdc++5 package was dropped in Debian and Ubuntu karmic as it failed to build and was considered obsolete.

    However some legacy applications still need it so it was reintroduced in Debian. The new package failed to build on Ubuntu so I sent a patch to Debian and later posted a sync request. Recently I pinged ScottK to approve the request to backport it to karmic and lucid.

• SRU of libapache2-mod-fcgid
  • The version of libapache2-mod-fcgid in lucid contained a bug that truncated file uploads at 64KB.

    I cherry-picked the bugfix from upstream and integrated it into the Ubuntu package: bug 573591

• KDE bugfixing in lucid

  • At the end of the lucid development cycle I fixed several bugs in the kdebase-workspace package which all went upstream:
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/4:4.4.2-0ubuntu9
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/4:4.4.2-0ubuntu10
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/4:4.4.2-0ubuntu11
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/4:4.4.2-0ubuntu12

Areas of work

• Packages maintained in Debian

  • I maintain a few packages in Debian and also take care of them in Ubuntu.

• Syncs

  • #563011 #577322 #577751 #577793 #581366 #582936 #584000 #589625 #589881 #589898
    #590067 #589445 #614906 #580458 #582609 #582616 #582621 #592632 #585499 #588732
    #588750 #588766 #589920 #590239 #496687 #589917 #589903 #598854 #599095 #637647
    #432953 #578029 #578211 #579725 #589248 #590360 #595050 #610244 #589171 #589847
    #604350

• Merges

  • #415908 #580724 #383628 #579884 #441590 #577744 #579728 #586760 #589202 #534307

• FTBFS fixes

  • https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/codeblocks/8.02-0ubuntu4
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/abiword/2.6.8-5ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gamin/0.1.10-1ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ciopfs/0.2-0ubuntu4
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vdr/1.6.0-9ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vdr-plugin-burn/0.1.0~pre21-29ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qtscriptgenerator/0.1.0-3ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/monkeystudio/1.8.4.0-1ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cdrkit/9:1.1.9-1ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vdr-plugin-extrecmenu/1.1-8ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vdr-plugin-epgsearch/0.9.24-3ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/iptotal/0.3.3-12ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tora/2.1.2-1ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rlplot/1.4-1ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unbound/1.4.5-1ubuntu1
    

• KDE

  • I work on KDE and related packages, some examples:
    

    • In maverick I helped to update many packages that required a build-dependency on cmake and/or libqt4-webkit-dev (and later libqtwebkit-dev):

      • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KDECMakeBuildDependTransition
        https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QtWebKitBuildDependTransition?action=recall&rev=32
        https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QtWebKitBuildDependTransition
        

    • Worked on packaging KDE 4.5.1: https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Ninjas/Packaging?action=recall&rev=1421

    • Merged qt4-x11 4.7.0~rc1 with Debian

    • QtWebkit bugfixes

• Other bug fixes

  • https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pidgin/1:2.6.2-1ubuntu7
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thaifonts-scalable/1:0.4.13-1ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gamgi/0.13.10-0ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mythtv-theme-metallurgy-wide/1.0-0ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pidgin-otr/3.2.0-4ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ttf-indic-fonts/1:0.5.8ubuntu2
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/packagekit/0.6.7-0ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sqliteman/1.2.2-0ubuntu1
    Serveral versions of qtcreator
    

• New upstream versions

  • https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/wormux/1:0.9.2.1-0ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/colibri/0.2.1-0ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/qdevelop/0.28-0ubuntu1
    https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amarok/2:2.3.2-0ubuntu1
    

Things I could do better

I tend to be bit lazy when it comes to updating the debian/copyright file for new upstream versions.

Plans for the future

General

Keep contributing like I'm doing now and try to help new packagers (e.g. by working on the sponsorship queue and being more active in #ubuntu-motu).
I'm also planning to do more packaging work in Debian. Right now I'm working on pushing my wormux package changes to Debian and then keep co-maintaing it in Debian.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Many bugs that are ignored for a long time. I think we should encourage users more to report bugs directly upstream as we often just don't have the resources to traige and forward the bug reports.

Comments

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Endorsements

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TEMPLATE

== <SPONSORS NAME> ==
=== General feedback ===
## Please fill us in on your shared experience. (How many packages did you sponsor? How would you judge the quality? How would you describe the improvements? Do you trust the applicant?)

=== Specific Experiences of working together ===
''Please add good examples of your work together, but also cases that could have handled better.''
=== Areas of Improvement ===

CategoryMOTUApplication