Odd_Bloke

I, Daniel Watkins, apply for upload rights for the ubuntu-cloud packageset.

Who I Am

I have been using GNU/Linux systems since the early 00s; my initial experience was with Red Hat and Fedora, before becoming a Debian user circa 2006. Since then, I have run Debian or Ubuntu on pretty much all of my systems, professionally or personally.

On graduating from the University of Warwick in 2010, I worked for a Debian-focussed free software consultancy named credativ. In this role, I was involved in maintaining a number of Debian servers for clients, as well as developing and packaging solutions for a variety of problems. After that, I moved to London where I developed Django web applications with several startups, honing my Python skills.

In September 2014, I joined Canonical’s Certified Public Cloud team, where I work to make Ubuntu the best it can be in the cloud. In practical terms, this consists of debugging issues, writing tooling for testing and publication, and packaging changes needed for the various clouds in to Ubuntu. In particular, I have been heavily involved in cloud-init development and packaging.

My Ubuntu Story

My involvement

As a member of the CPC team, I have engaged in large quantities of cloud-init work. This has taken the form of features and bug fixes in the most recent version, as well as backports of those features/bug fixes to older Ubuntu versions.

I've also been instrumental in moving the building of cloud images from using a 5 year old fork of livecd-rootfs/live-build to the version in the Ubuntu archive.

Examples of my work/Things I'm proud of

Areas of Work

  • cloud-init and other cloud-related packages
  • livecd-rootfs/live-build for the building of cloud images
  • collaboration with the release team for the timely release of cloud images
  • collaboration with the kernel team to handle kernel-related issues in clouds

Things I Could Do Better

  • Work on packages which aren't just related to cloud images
  • Expand my horizons beyond primarily-Python packages

Plans for the Future

General

  • Continue making the Ubuntu cloud experience the best it can be
  • Increase my involvement in cloud-init development

What I like least in Ubuntu

  • The cloud image build process is fairly opaque to people not directly involved in it; this makes community contribution (or even sensible bug reporting) difficult
    • To improve this, I can continue to migrate cloud image build tooling in to packaged, maintainable formats (where possible)

Comments

Endorsements

Note: If you have anything nice to say about this person, please do add it below along with @ SIG @ (no spaces). The @ SIG @ command will sign your name and date/time it after you "Save Changes".

Daniel is pleasant to work with and careful. He's very a very knowledgeable python developer and has been quite helpful as a contributor to cloud-init. His job has provided him with a great deal of experience and gained knowledge on a variety of cloud providers. I have exactly zero hesitation in recommending Daniel for Per Package upload of cloud-init. -- smoser 2015-11-09 17:25:02

As a member of the CPC team, Daniel has de facto responsibility for the packages in the ubuntu-cloud packageset. His package contribution history reflects this focus, as well as the focus on livecd-rootfs used for cloud image builds. I have sponsored an SRU of walinuxagent for Daniel, as well as reviewing and merging branches for him against livecd-rootfs, and have been happy with the quality of his code and his attention to detail. The livecd-rootfs integration continues to get better over time, and I look forward to collaborating with him to further improve our image build tooling. In addition to the ubuntu-cloud packages, I have also worked with him for uploads to the Canonical Partner archive. I believe I have a sufficiently broad view of his work that I have no reservations about recommending him for PPU for ubuntu-cloud - particularly given that he also has Scott's endorsement for cloud-init, which is the most sensitive package in that packageset. -- vorlon 2016-07-01 16:19:15

Odd_Bloke (last edited 2016-08-16 11:21:30 by oddbloke)