Ubuntu Wiki

About me

My name is Matthias Klumpp. Feel free to poke me on IRC if you've any questions!

About my Linux experience:

• Using Linux since ~2004/2005, started off with SuSE back in the days.
• Following the Ubuntu development process since 6.10 (Edgy Eft)
• Using Debian Testing, Kubuntu and Tanglu currently, on different machines and for different purposes.

• I am a contributor to KDE, GNOME and various Freedesktop projects, most notably PackageKit.

Team Memberships at Ubuntu

• Member of the Debian-Multimedia Team at Debian

• Founder of the PackageKit-Team at Debian

• Member of the Ubuntu-PackageKit Team at LP

• Ubuntu BugSquad and BugControl

• Kubuntu Bugs

Projects

Packaging

As the packaging stuff changes very often, I don't have a complete list here. You might take a look at my Debian QA page to see some packages I maintain at Debian.

Major packaging tasks:

• Packaged the projectM music visualizer and did some development on it to get it working better for Debian/Ubuntu and to be fully DFSG-compliant.

• Brought PackageKit to Debian, removed some of the last blocking bugs upstream.

• Packaged debconf-kde for Debian and made it ready for use with Muon and Apper
• Various other contributions to KDE packaging, most notably the Apper package manager.
• Work on the Limba application installation solution (see below for details).
• Misc stuff like easyMp3Gain etc...

AppStream

I am the maintainer of the AppStream Freedesktop project, which advances the package management by adding rich metadata to it. This is awesome for our upstream<->downstream relations, as upstreams get more control over how their software is presented while downstreams (we as distributors!) retain their full freedom to package things in a way best suited for the particular distribution. AppStream is also awesome for making it possible to present users a featureful software center and to enable future developments, like UEFI-based automatic firmware updates.

Limba

Limba is my latest pet-project for making cross-distro software installations possible. It is similar to GNOMEs XdgApp approach, but features a more modular design. I have great plans with it in future, and good contacts with the XdgApp people, to make simple and sane software distribution on the Linux platform possible in future.

Tanglu

I am co-founder of the Tanglu Linux distribution and currently leading the project. While working on Tanglu I learned to deeply appreciate the great work done by Ubuntu people in the early days when Ubuntu was young, as they created a lot of the fundamental work needed to create a well-working Debian derivative, and also landed lots of useful patches in Debian core packages. My work on Tanglu is mainly infrastructure work (maintaining our archive and build infrastructure), but also representing the project when needed (e.g. when talking to sponsors). Tanglu is a small but constantly growing project, and I am grateful to work with so many cool and talented people in the Tanglu, Debian and Kubuntu communities which contribute to it or help with advice.

KDE

I am a KDE developer, and recently I mainly contributed to it by fixing random bugs, without a main field of activity. I work on the Apper project (in extragear) together with Daniel.

Freedesktop

I am PackageKit developer, help out with systemd integration and in general try to reduce obstacles of cross-distro and cross-desktop interoperability as much as possible. One of my long-term goals is to have KDE and GNOME applications integrate well into each others desktop and to make the need of desktop- or distribution-specific hacks in applications unnecessary. AppStream is an important contribution to this effort, but a lot more work - and more importantly, talking - has to be done by different people to achieve the final goal.

GSoC 2012

I was a student developer for OpenSUSE in the Google Summer of Code 2012, working on porting the Ubuntu Software Center to PackageKit and to OpenSUSE and Fedora. I ended up with landing a lots of patches and architectual changes in PackageKit, implementing a new feature which allows PackageKit read-only actions to be processed in parallel. This and other work done during my SoC project made other developments like AppStream and GNOME-Software possible.

GSoC 2014

In GSoC 2014 I mentored a project for Debian to implement the DEP-11 specification in the Debian Archive Kit, which makes AppStream work on Debian. The SoC project was completed successfully by my student Abhishek Bhattacharjee. After some refactoring work done by me, the code will soon be used in Debian in a slightly different form. The new work done on the results of Abhishek's SoC project will also make it possible for Debian derivatives to easily add support for AppStream.

Community

I am helping out people who have problems with Debian, Kubuntu or Tanglu on the respective English and German forums. Sometimes I use my blog to highlight technical obstacles users might face, or just give an insight into the plans we as "the developers" currently have. My blog is syndicated to Planet Freedesktop, Planet KDE, Planet Debian, Planet Tanglu and Planet OpenSUSE. I also gave a talk about cross-distro software distribution and AppStream at FOSDEM'11.

In my opinion, being honest and open about the plans you have and motivations that drive you will not only remove obstacles before they appear in a communication process with other developers or users, but also allow others to support or criticise the ideas you have - which in the end makes them better faster than if they were locked away in your head.

IRC

You can find me in many channels on FreeNode.
#packagekit #ubuntu-devel #kubuntu-devel #freedesktop #tanglu-devel #systemd
OFTC:
#debian-multimedia #debian-devel #debian-mentors #debian-ubuntu #debian-qt-kde #debian-systemd

Various stuff

• You might know me from DebConf, DesktopSummit 2011 or the FOSDEM conference.

• Maybe you're interested in my Weblog

Contact details

Email: <matthias AT SPAMFREE tenstral DOT net>

Me at Launchpad

This page is not complete, please poke me to update it if you feel it's outdated

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