CoreDevApplication

I, Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre, apply for Ubuntu Core Developer.

Name

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre

Launchpad Page

http://launchpad.net/~mathieu-tl

Who I am

I'm a developer in the Ubuntu Desktop team for Canonical. My job is to maintain NetworkManager (and related components) and help with the general maintenance of the desktop package. I contribute directly to a number of different projects such as NetworkManager, concordance/congruity, through bug reports, patches, or maintaining packages in Debian and Ubuntu.

My Ubuntu story

I've been using Ubuntu since about the Hoary release, and was suggested that I contribute to Ubuntu by some of my former coworkers because of my ideas and some of the bugs that I noticed in some systems (like NetworkManager), and patches that I had proposed. I've been contributing to Ubuntu since Jaunty.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

SRUs

NetworkManager

I've written patches to NetworkManager that were included upstream (or that are in the process of); the latest, most relevant:

Transitions

Debian

I maintain concordance, congruity, acct, ethos and emerillon in Debian, along with helping with the maintenance of connman. I've also recently contributed to updating libnl3 from 3.0 to 3.2.3, with the help of the libnl3 maintainer, Heiko Stuebner.

bzr Merge Proposals

Areas of work

I am mostly known for maintaining NetworkManager and the related packages (modemmanager, wpasupplicant, usb-modeswitch, etc.), but I also spend time dealing with lower-level or more global networking aspects such as libnl3 lately and dealing with the associated transition. I also maintain desktop packages based on current needs in the Desktop team, and especially look after the Evolution stack.

Things I could do better

I tend to be slow at moving patches to Debian; even though I feel this is consitantly better I now keep forgetting to properly credit patches as coming from Ubuntu when they are submitted to Debian.

The same I guess applies to patches submitted upstream to, e.g. NetworkManager; I find some to be missing proper "credit" as being done by me for Ubuntu or for Canonical, with the need to ask it to be fixed after the fact. Proper automatization could help there, but using multiple email accounts still makes the process cumbersome.

Plans for the future

I need to get more involved in sponsoring uploads, which I can already do as a member of the Desktop team. So far it has mostly been centered around just merge requests for NetworkManager and ModemManager, but I need to get more confortable with reviewing others' work.

I'm also getting more involved in maintenance of the archive, having core-dev upload rights will allow me to be much more productive there, especially when it comes to shepherding transitions of packages I already look after with interest (thinking libnl here) without adding more work to others in lieu of sponsoring requests. Spending the month of November in the plusonemaint team was motivating to repeat the experience and get my hands dirtier.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Things move very fast and we have relatively little time to turn around in terms of including new features in a release. This has especially been the case in Oneiric for IPv6 support which initially looked pretty good at UDS for the desktop, but we needed to add a bunch of fixes or feature improvements to NetworkManager to make it really rock... except those take a fair amount of time to get just right, to test, etc.

I do believe that Acceptance Criteria discussions and work is going to help with this a great deal.

Comments

If you'd like to comment, but are not the applicant or a sponsor, do it here. Don't forget to sign with @SIG@.

Endorsements

As a sponsor, just copy the template below, fill it out and add it to this section.

MarcDeslauriers

General feedback

I would recommend MathieuTrudel for CoreDev without hesitation. His attention to detail with some of the most difficult to maintain packages in Ubuntu, such as Network Manager and Evolution demonstrate his ability to maintain the level of quality necessary to be a Core Dev. His quick response to bugs, and his ability to quickly pull out specific fixes from upstream projects, and create his own fixes to issues are excellent qualities.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have sponsored a few uploads for him, and they went without a hitch. I have worked with him on bugs I have experienced in Evolution and Network Manager and he was quick to respond, and quick to fix them.

Areas of Improvement

I would like to see more coordination with Debian, and would like to get our packages more in sync to ease maintenance. This is something he is aware of and is working on doing.

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)

General feedback

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre generally does a great job and I'd like to see him as core-dev. He has maintained many packages with a lot of dedication and I trust him with his work.

Specific Experiences of working together

JamieStrandboge (jdstrand)

General feedback

I was totally surprised when Mathieu asked me to comment on his core-dev membership, as I assumed he already was. He maintains important packages in Ubuntu, and my experiences in working with him have shown he is thoughtful, capable and thorough.

Specific Experiences of working together

In terms of packaging, most recently I sponsored an xscreensaver merge for him. I really tried to find something wrong, but could not. It was of high quality.

My other experiences have been surrounding discussions on handling networking and firewalling in Ubuntu, and I have always been impressed by his knowledge and understanding of the technical details and user concerns. I have also been the recipient of several quickly fixed evolution issues, of which I am most grateful. Smile :) -- jdstrand 2012-01-31 15:38:12

Martin Pitt

General feedback

I have worked with Mathieu for quite a long time in the desktop team now. He has become a very proficient developer in the Network/Bluetooth area, and he amazes me with how quickly he resolves bugs and problems. As he has already been a PPU for some time, I didn't sponsor much for him, just the two packages below. I trust him to ask when he encounters a new situation, and would welcome him to become a full core-dev.

Thanks Mathieu for your great work!

Specific Experiences of working together

-- -- pitti 2012-02-02 12:41:16

Stéphane Graber

General feedback

I've known Mathieu and been working with him on various projects for quite a few years now. I've also been sponsoring quite a few of his packages lately, for these seeded packages that aren't part of the desktop packageset. I can't remember when was the last time I actually had to change something in these packages as they were all good quality on a varied set of packages for a mix of fixes, new upstream releases and merges from Debian. I think Mathieu is more than ready for CoreDev and CoreDev membership will help him a lot work on a broader set of packages and for his work in the +1 maintenance team.

Specific Experiences of working together

  • usb-modeswitch (merge)
  • usb-modeswitch-data (new upstream)
  • libnl3 (bugfixes)
  • resolvconf (maintainer script bugfixes)
  • ... (these are the last 4 I can remember, for more I'd have to go dig in my mails)

-- -- stgraber 2012-02-13 14:11:00

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 ===

CategoryCoreDevApplication

MathieuTrudel/CoreDevApplication (last edited 2012-02-13 14:13:02 by stgraber)