Ploum
My real name is Lionel Dricot, from Belgium, born on 9th of march 1981 and actual president of LouvainLiNux, a belgian LUG. Everybody call me "Ploum" online. Sometimes even in real life
My email is ploum at frimouvy.org My Jabber ID is ... the same My blog : http://ploum.frimouvy.org
I'm an OpenSource Evangelist. I write articles and documentation, mainly in french. For example, I've written a long Spatial Nautilus manual for 2.6 release (lost in a crash disk). I have given a conference about OpenOffice.org installation in France and written [http://www.framasoft.net/article1891.html articles]. I sometimes take part in some translation process. I was in the early TheOpenCD french translation team after I created the website "La grenouille bleue" (lost), wich helped people to install free software under Windows.
For now, when I'm not evangelizing people, I do bug testing and triaging for GNOME and Ubuntu, being a permanent beta-tester. I'm also the founder and maintener of fritalk.com project, a open and reliable Jabber server. I have written a lot of documentation about Jabber which is now part of http://jabberfr.org .
What have I done for Ubuntu ?
2003 : In 2003, I wrote a long text called [http://wiki.frimouvy.org/ThePerfectDesktop The Perfect Desktop]. It was a long list of recommandations to make Debian+Gnome the perfect desktop. Just what Ubuntu did ! I was at this time a member of the french debian community. (reporting bugs, writing documentation and helping newbies on http://andesi.org )
2004 : In July, Sébastien Bacher (seb128), invited me as an Ubuntu beta tester. I wrote a long review of the Warty-beta. The only trace I found from those ages is this page : http://people.ubuntulinux.org/~mako/ubuntu-traffic/u20040903_02.html (look for "ploum") (the review must exist somewhere in archives. It's an abiword file and nobody was able to read it)
After the Warty release, I wrote the first Ubuntu FAQ in french (there was no french ubuntu website at this time). This FAQ was used as one of the first documentation of ubuntu-fr.org. I also wrote an article [http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2004/10/21/4-ensemble-les-yeux-leves-vers-le-ciel for Warty release].
I also wrote about installing Warty on a very old laptop : http://wiki.frimouvy.org/CompaqPresario . (I receive a lot of email about this page and helped some people to have sound on their Compaq )
2005 : I wrote an article in french for [http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2005/04/08/48-lhoary-ma-meilleure-amie the hoary release]. I continue to report bug, to ask people around me what they think about Ubuntu. I really try to find how to have a better usability (the only visible exemple I see is about [http://udu.wiki.ubuntu.com/PrintingRoadmap printing]). It also happens that I take time to translate some strings in rosetta but, well, not as much as I want 
I'm evangelizing a lot and working on a big project related to breezy. (I can't speak about it on a public website, mako know about it)
I'm an active member of http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org and http://ubuntuforums.org , helping newbies and writing howto. When too much newbies have the same problem, I usually fill a bug or find a good place in the wiki to talk about it. One example ? I wrote this [http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=2969 sound under Hoary Howto] in french and it was [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26567 translated in english].
As I do bug triaging for gnome, I try to make the connection between gnome and ubuntu bugzilla, finding upstream gnome bug in ubuntu bugzilla, reporting them upstream (or finding upstream equivalent) and then marking them as UPSTREAM.
What can I do for Ubuntu ?
Marketing, marketing and marketing. It's a big gap in OpenSource world, IMHO.
Outreach. I like to take things and bring them to non-techies people. The following article was published in a newspaper of my university : http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2005/07/14/62-de-la-liberte-la-face-meconnue-de-l-informatique
- Writing. As you can read, my english is far from perfect. But I like to write in french (and in english if someone takes the time to correct me). So I can write full articles or documentation in a not-so-formal way.
Events. I like to do the "showman" and to speak about things in front of hundred of people. That's fun ! Being stupid on a showfloor is just easier for me thant to write good code. So if a BelgianLocoTeam need me one day..( You can see here my [ftp://ftp.crans.org/pub/Install-party/Lionel_Dricot.ogm first conference] (185Mo). I was so bad ! If you are really brave, you can listen to the song I wrote : [http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2005/02/15/40-ce-pauvre-ordi Ce pauvre ordi])
- Usability : I've studied a lot usability and Human-Machine Interaction. (I take this option at the university).
I've a lot of experience with very old people using computer, with first-time users and so. I even read once completely the gnome HIG. (2 years ago, yes, I was young !). The work of my parents is mainly based on physical accessibility for people with disabilities. So I learned a lot from this.
One of my usability paper about gnome : http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2004/10/25/6-i-dont-want-people-to-use-gnome-applications-anymore
I wrote this [http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2005/04/17/49-tout-simplement text about usability in OpenSource software] followed by this [http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?2005/04/18/50-en-verite-je-vous-le-demande Hoary vs WinXP comparaison].
Bugs&Testing
- Coding : I write fluently C, Python and others. But, well, a lot of people are doing it better...
Why becoming an Ubuntu Member ?
I want to take part more actively in the marketing&outreach work around Ubuntu. Also, I think I can be more efficient if I take part of a structured community instead of doing my own little buisness.