I, Scott Howard, apply for MOTU upload rights.

Who I am

academic researcher in applied physics, optical biomedical sensing/diagnostics/imaging

My Ubuntu story

My involvement

I've been involved in Ubuntu development for about 2 years. It was my first involvement in a community, was first involved with bug squad, then joined bug-control (reviewed many bug-control applications). I "adopted" gnome-power-manager for bug-triage and ended up fixing enough upstream bugs to get GNOME upload rights, then worked on universe packages. Joined MOTU science, worked in keeping Debian and Ubuntu in sync then involved in pushing bug fixes back to Debian. I adopted some Debian packages, and got involved with debian-java and debian-science. Recently became a DD. All along I've been working with package maintenance in both debian and ubuntu: bug fixing (and forwarding upstream), and keeping packages up-to-date.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

See: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ScottHoward/ContributingDeveloperApplication

• Several SRUs (including one I stumbled across myself, triaged, wrote the patch, got it sponsored)
• Bringing arduino to Debian and Ubuntu (www.arduino.cc). Coordinates with upstream and depending libraries upstream (rxtx) to keep releases up to date.
• Bringing librecad to Debian and Ubuntu. Right not it's only in Ubuntu as Edubuntu would like to replace QCAD (qt3) with LibreCAD (qt4) in Natty. I worked with Jonathan Carter to get that done.

• Lots of fixes, merges and syncs. My list at https://launchpad.net/~showard314/+related-software does not include the team packages I maintain and help with in Debian.

• Involved with > 600 bugs, 200+ of them are fix released/committed (some of them are duplicate upstream trackers and the bug itself, this is just a rough interest)

Areas of work

gnome-power-manager (and desktop team, pitti did a bunch of my first sponsors, fabrice as well, communicated much with Richard Hughes from upstream. coordinated the string changes to gpm with Ayatana and got feed back from the sabdfl), MOTU-science, debian-science (Andreas Tille, Steffen Moeller), debian-java (Torsten Werner), Edubuntu (Jonathan Carter).

Things I could do better

I could be on IRC more, I mostly work over email. I worked a bit on trying to resurrect the MOTU-mentoring program (under the new name "developer mentoring"). However, the patch pilot and packaging sessions, I think, were much more useful at identifying quality new developers as well as in getting students involved in high quality work immediately. They also appear to be good uses of our limited resources (developer time).

Plans for the future

General

Coordination of Debian and Ubuntu (many DDs don't know how to work in Ubuntu, and vice-versa). Keep bringing the best and newest scientific software in Debian and Ubuntu, sponsoring MOTU-science packages (and other Universe packages).

What I like least in Ubuntu

IN PROGRESS

Comments

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Endorsements

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

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.''
## Full list of sponsored packages can be generated here:
## http://ubuntu-dev.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?
=== Areas of Improvement ===

CategoryMOTUApplication