ScottRitchie

Differences between revisions 1 and 164 (spanning 163 versions)
Revision 1 as of 2005-05-28 20:53:03
Size: 3301
Editor: adsl-213-190-44-43
Comment: imported from the old wiki
Revision 164 as of 2010-07-21 22:35:17
Size: 9921
Editor: 128-107-239-233
Comment: some stuff
Deletions are marked like this. Additions are marked like this.
Line 1: Line 1:
= ScottRitchie = #format wiki
#language en
||<tablestyle="float:right; font-size: 0.9em; width:40%; background:#ffffff; border: 1px solid #6569ae; margin: 0 0 1em 1em;" style="padding:0.5em; -moz-border-radius: 1em;text-align:center;"> {{attachment:gotchi.png}} || {{attachment:ubuntu-wine.png}} ||
|| '''Name:''' || Scott Ritchie ||
|| '''Location:''' || Northern California {us} ||
|| '''Blog:''' || [[http://yokozar.org/blog]] ||
|| '''Launchpad:''' || [[http://launchpad.net/~scottritchie]] ||
|| '''IRC:''' || YokoZar ||
Line 3: Line 10:
Hey, I'm Scott Ritchie. You can usually find me on IRC as YokoZar, both on #ubuntu-devel and #winehackers. I'm Scott Ritchie. You can usually find me on Freenode IRC or the [[http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=313|Ubuntu Wine forum]] as !YokoZar. I [[http://yokozar.org/blog/|keep a blog]] that you should read, which is syndicated on Planet Ubuntu. I also have pages on [[https://launchpad.net/~scottritchie|Launchpad]], [[http://wiki.winehq.org/ScottRitchie|Wine's Wiki]], and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scott_Ritchie|Wikipedia]]. I am a MOTU, and while my chief interest is maintaining the Wine package and everything that is related to it, these days I find myself doing a lot more. [[https://launchpad.net/~scottritchie/+related-software|View recent uploads in Launchpad]].
Line 5: Line 12:
I'm currently trying to be a MOTU in order to properly support my Wine packages. I started making them and putting them up at winehq.org after the ones included in Debian (and therefore in universe) became horribly broken and out of date. I've tried becoming the official Debian maintainer, as well as getting him to sponsor my packages, but have been completely unsuccessful. Debian beaurocracy can be quite frustrating - Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised when Jeff Waugh came to me asking me to sign up :) I want good, usable software everywhere in Ubuntu, especially Wine -- users shouldn't even need to know they're running it. My goal is to help make Wine easy and effective enough to be an official supported package in Ubuntu. Like most developers, however, I make myself useful throughout the entire Ubuntu project, doing everything from [[https://bugs.launchpad.net/~scottritchie/|filing bugs]] in other packages to drafting entire blueprints to working on the [[SponsorshipProcess|Sponsorship Queue]].
Line 7: Line 14:
The specific packages I'm concerned with at the moment are those related to Wine: namely, wine and the new winetools package I just created (it's at winehq.org too.) When I finish porting open source windows software by recompiling natively with Winelib, such as Miranda, I'd like to package it for Ubuntu as well. I've been putting quite a bit of work into them, as well, and would love to spend more time on it in an official context. == Summary ==
If you want to get a closer idea of what I'm working on right now, you can [[http://yokozar.org/blog/microblog/|check out my microblog]] and follow me on Twitter/Identi.ca
  * Community Developer (MOTU)
  * Responsible for all things Wine in Ubuntu, including moderating [[http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=313|Ubuntu Wine forum]] and the Wine Team (which is basically just me)
  * I do both design and code
  * I love writing - both technical, creative, and uncreative
  * When I write code it's either Python, shell scripts, or package build scripts
Line 9: Line 22:
I'm primarily concerned with usability of Wine software, including proper packaging and documentation work. My goal is nothing short of making Wine easy and effective enough to be an official package in the next Ubuntu release. My current todo list looks like this: == Interests ==
  * I am working on some Gnome-related packages that will someday be worthy of default install. The goal is to integrate Wine as a seamless part of the desktop. I work upstream a lot at Wine, and while there are a few others interested in usability, I'm the one who has to make the changes needed outside of Wine itself.
  * I would also like to improve the Desktop and Gnome in general - the UI design experience I have gained over the past six years in free software will be very helpful for this.
  * I am a community developer, and will gladly sponsor any new package or bug fix you have, or even help you get started on packaging. Just shoot me an email.
Line 11: Line 27:
 * Documentation is a seemingly never-ending task, both for man pages and packaging guidelines and such.
 * The Wine documentation also needs to be moved into the right places. I was recently given a very helpful tip on IRC about making Wine's User Guide work with standard freedesktop.org help interfaces, and I'll be committing the patch upstream shortly.
 * Tweaking the wine package to get it a bit more right is also important. I've got a bunch of little changes I need to make for the next release written up on my penboard at the moment. Hopefully soon I can start erasing them.
 * Updating the Wine User Guide itself. I've already got chapter 1, the introduction, finished, and am working on redoing the next 3 chapters. Obviously, this is a good thing to do. I'm also porting the wine user guide to the standard Gnome help file format upstream, which should be nice.
 * Updating the Wine web site to make things easier (example is this page: [http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb] ). That site may undergo a slight redesign in the future too.
 * I've got a special project I've been trying for a while involving porting Miranda Instant Messenger with Winelib. In theory, I could convert it into an Ubuntu package that runs on all arches with the Wine package installed, even though Miranda is a windows program. If this becomes easy it represents an amazingly huge step in application compatibility - it won't be long before we start seeing other OSS apps like DC++ or FileZilla coming into Ubuntu packages. Writing a howto guide for this based on my experience is part of this goal.
 * The Winelib documentation needs updating as well. I plan on using my experience trying to port Miranda IM to help it out.
 * My Winetools package needs a bit of cleaning up as well, as well as some eye candy like icons.
 * The winetools package could be converted away from Xdialog (yuck) to a more modern solution
=== Remaining Targets for Maverick ===
  * [[karmic-wine-integration]] this blueprint: work started on Karmic, continued in Lucid, continues in Maverick
  * Allow uninstallation of Windows applications through Software Center rather than Wine's dedicated uninstall program. This way we can put all software removal in one nice, convenient place.
  * Create a good System->Preferences->Windows Applications menu to replace the relevant parts of Winecfg.
   * ''Mostly done with the Vineyard project, however we're waiting on Wine1.2 for remaining integration tasks, which is not finished yet''
  * Move Applications->Wine->Browse C:\ Drive to the Places menu and give it a consistent icon
   * '''Waiting on Nautilus developers:''' ''https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=588733''
  * Once these three are done, we can remove their counterparts in the Wine menu and collapse it so the user needs fewer clicks to get to their application. So instead of Applications->Wine->Programs->Foo Company->Bar, they could instead just do Applications->Wine->Foo Company->Bar
  * Make gnome-exe-thumbnailer part of the default install so users can see the embedded icons for executable files
   * '''Waiting on Desktop team:''' ''https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-exe-thumbnailer/+bug/604477''
  * Create a good right click->properties menu for individual executables. Here the user would be able to modify what windows version they run in, and whether that application should be able to make itself full screen or be forced into a particular window. Currently in order to run Diablo 2 in a window a user has to mess with winecfg or run a cryptic terminal command.
   * '''Needs further investigation:''' ''would like this to be a part of the Wine package (or a dependency) rather than Gnome itself.''
 * Integrate deb-thumbnailer: https://launchpad.net/deb-thumbnailer -- it was based on my exe-thumbnailer package

=== Possible future work ===
  * [[lucid-time-based-parental-controls|Parental Controls]]: a feature to disable certain log in times. Requires code in quite a few places as well as some UI design, but should be a useful selling feature for Ubuntu.

== History of me in Ubuntu ==
If it's something Wine related in Ubuntu, odds are I'm responsible for getting it done. But, like all Ubuntu developers, I occasionally dabble in other areas that I often forget about. This is a partial list of those things.

=== Maverick cycle ===
 * Added great icon thumbnails for Windows applications to show their embedded icon rather than a boring ? default. Found in the gnome-exe-thumbnailer package
 * Created some tests for checkbox based on Wine's test suite and a few benchmark programs. These tests serve as both regression tests (for kernel bugs and X crashes) as well as standard benchmarks for performance work.

=== Lucid cycle ===
 * Lots of upstream Wine work
 * Solicited and got tons of community translations for all the Wine Application menu items
 * Made a famous post complaining about Window controls: http://yokozar.org/blog/archives/194

=== Karmic cycle ===
 * Lots of fixes to app-install-data (over 12 bugs in Launchpad and [[https://code.launchpad.net/~scottritchie/app-install-data-ubuntu/karmic-fixes|this branch]]) so that the new Software Center actually has some good information about a lot of important packages. For instance, flashplugin now has a proper description, mentions adobe rather than macromedia, and actually has an icon.
 * [[http://yokozar.org/blog/archives/142|Clean up the restart notifier in update-manager]]
 * [[https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=588730|Suggest Tomboy inform the user about search results better]]
 * Create a wine1.2 package with a recent Wine beta and begin merging some of my integration work in
 * New icons for Wine1.2 to match the Humanity theme, including various pixel optimizations
 * Create a gnome-exe-thumbnailer package to show embedded exe icons inside a generic "application" container
 * I packaged the game Kernel Panic and the Spring engine it runs on.
 * I created the new [[branding]] packages, with work contributed by the community.

=== Jaunty cycle ===
 * After presenting at wineconf 2008 the Wine developers agreed to create the interface we need for further configuration and integration work.
 * Started working on wine integration project, recruited some volunteers to help

=== Earlier ===
 * Discussed the merit of having a "mute shutdown sound" checkbox when shutting down (if there is one)...or at least having no shutdown sound by default. The next release we got rid of the shutdown sound.
 * Brought Wine packaging to 64-bit Ubuntu and made it work properly with 32 bit apps
 * Brought new icons to Wine from the community and helped get more of them made. Wine 1.2 shipped with a complete set as a result.
 * Fixed shared-mime-info upstream and in Ubuntu so Wine can open .msi files: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/229062
 * Sponsored libtorrent-rasterbar (it's still waiting for debian sponsors, and debian import freeze is soon)
 * Created the Wine Gecko package rather than have Wine get it off the internet for every user

=== How I got to Ubuntu ===
After some bad experiences attempting to contribute to Debian, I was pleasantly surprised when [[JeffWaugh|Jeff Waugh]] came directly to me and asked me to sign up for Ubuntu. That was back in the Hoary days, and I've been directly helping ever since. In the past, my contributions had mostly been making the Wine packages at winehq.org, however now I do far more. Making Wine work just right for the user involves improving many different parts of the system, and now that I am a MOTU I can work on most of them directly.

== Other interests ==
 * I taught myself Python for the purpose of conducting my own research into mathematical analysis of different [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system|voting systems]]. I plan to develop this research further and someday head into grad school, where I'll publish results as they come. I even see myself writing a book at some point, albeit that's around 4 years into the future.
 * I'm actively searching for work. There's nothing I'd love to do more than work full time on Ubuntu and supporting users at this point. Chasing bounties or being community funded is another option I may pursue, given the massive amount of users Wine has.
 * I enjoy reading and writing short essays. Powerful writing is like a clear interface. You stop noticing the words, and instead just get the ideas.

See [[ScottRitchie/Work]] for more wikipage

----
CategoryHomepage

gotchi.png

ubuntu-wine.png

Name:

Scott Ritchie

Location:

Northern California {us}

Blog:

http://yokozar.org/blog

Launchpad:

http://launchpad.net/~scottritchie

IRC:

YokoZar

I'm Scott Ritchie. You can usually find me on Freenode IRC or the Ubuntu Wine forum as YokoZar. I keep a blog that you should read, which is syndicated on Planet Ubuntu. I also have pages on Launchpad, Wine's Wiki, and Wikipedia. I am a MOTU, and while my chief interest is maintaining the Wine package and everything that is related to it, these days I find myself doing a lot more. View recent uploads in Launchpad.

I want good, usable software everywhere in Ubuntu, especially Wine -- users shouldn't even need to know they're running it. My goal is to help make Wine easy and effective enough to be an official supported package in Ubuntu. Like most developers, however, I make myself useful throughout the entire Ubuntu project, doing everything from filing bugs in other packages to drafting entire blueprints to working on the Sponsorship Queue.

Summary

If you want to get a closer idea of what I'm working on right now, you can check out my microblog and follow me on Twitter/Identi.ca

  • Community Developer (MOTU)
  • Responsible for all things Wine in Ubuntu, including moderating Ubuntu Wine forum and the Wine Team (which is basically just me)

  • I do both design and code
  • I love writing - both technical, creative, and uncreative
  • When I write code it's either Python, shell scripts, or package build scripts

Interests

  • I am working on some Gnome-related packages that will someday be worthy of default install. The goal is to integrate Wine as a seamless part of the desktop. I work upstream a lot at Wine, and while there are a few others interested in usability, I'm the one who has to make the changes needed outside of Wine itself.
  • I would also like to improve the Desktop and Gnome in general - the UI design experience I have gained over the past six years in free software will be very helpful for this.
  • I am a community developer, and will gladly sponsor any new package or bug fix you have, or even help you get started on packaging. Just shoot me an email.

Remaining Targets for Maverick

  • karmic-wine-integration this blueprint: work started on Karmic, continued in Lucid, continues in Maverick

  • Allow uninstallation of Windows applications through Software Center rather than Wine's dedicated uninstall program. This way we can put all software removal in one nice, convenient place.
  • Create a good System->Preferences->Windows Applications menu to replace the relevant parts of Winecfg.

    • Mostly done with the Vineyard project, however we're waiting on Wine1.2 for remaining integration tasks, which is not finished yet

  • Move Applications->Wine->Browse C:\ Drive to the Places menu and give it a consistent icon

  • Once these three are done, we can remove their counterparts in the Wine menu and collapse it so the user needs fewer clicks to get to their application. So instead of Applications->Wine->Programs->Foo Company->Bar, they could instead just do Applications->Wine->Foo Company->Bar

  • Make gnome-exe-thumbnailer part of the default install so users can see the embedded icons for executable files
  • Create a good right click->properties menu for individual executables. Here the user would be able to modify what windows version they run in, and whether that application should be able to make itself full screen or be forced into a particular window. Currently in order to run Diablo 2 in a window a user has to mess with winecfg or run a cryptic terminal command.

    • Needs further investigation: would like this to be a part of the Wine package (or a dependency) rather than Gnome itself.

Possible future work

  • Parental Controls: a feature to disable certain log in times. Requires code in quite a few places as well as some UI design, but should be a useful selling feature for Ubuntu.

History of me in Ubuntu

If it's something Wine related in Ubuntu, odds are I'm responsible for getting it done. But, like all Ubuntu developers, I occasionally dabble in other areas that I often forget about. This is a partial list of those things.

Maverick cycle

  • Added great icon thumbnails for Windows applications to show their embedded icon rather than a boring ? default. Found in the gnome-exe-thumbnailer package
  • Created some tests for checkbox based on Wine's test suite and a few benchmark programs. These tests serve as both regression tests (for kernel bugs and X crashes) as well as standard benchmarks for performance work.

Lucid cycle

  • Lots of upstream Wine work
  • Solicited and got tons of community translations for all the Wine Application menu items
  • Made a famous post complaining about Window controls: http://yokozar.org/blog/archives/194

Karmic cycle

  • Lots of fixes to app-install-data (over 12 bugs in Launchpad and this branch) so that the new Software Center actually has some good information about a lot of important packages. For instance, flashplugin now has a proper description, mentions adobe rather than macromedia, and actually has an icon.

  • Clean up the restart notifier in update-manager

  • Suggest Tomboy inform the user about search results better

  • Create a wine1.2 package with a recent Wine beta and begin merging some of my integration work in
  • New icons for Wine1.2 to match the Humanity theme, including various pixel optimizations
  • Create a gnome-exe-thumbnailer package to show embedded exe icons inside a generic "application" container
  • I packaged the game Kernel Panic and the Spring engine it runs on.
  • I created the new branding packages, with work contributed by the community.

Jaunty cycle

  • After presenting at wineconf 2008 the Wine developers agreed to create the interface we need for further configuration and integration work.
  • Started working on wine integration project, recruited some volunteers to help

Earlier

  • Discussed the merit of having a "mute shutdown sound" checkbox when shutting down (if there is one)...or at least having no shutdown sound by default. The next release we got rid of the shutdown sound.
  • Brought Wine packaging to 64-bit Ubuntu and made it work properly with 32 bit apps
  • Brought new icons to Wine from the community and helped get more of them made. Wine 1.2 shipped with a complete set as a result.
  • Fixed shared-mime-info upstream and in Ubuntu so Wine can open .msi files: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/229062

  • Sponsored libtorrent-rasterbar (it's still waiting for debian sponsors, and debian import freeze is soon)
  • Created the Wine Gecko package rather than have Wine get it off the internet for every user

How I got to Ubuntu

After some bad experiences attempting to contribute to Debian, I was pleasantly surprised when Jeff Waugh came directly to me and asked me to sign up for Ubuntu. That was back in the Hoary days, and I've been directly helping ever since. In the past, my contributions had mostly been making the Wine packages at winehq.org, however now I do far more. Making Wine work just right for the user involves improving many different parts of the system, and now that I am a MOTU I can work on most of them directly.

Other interests

  • I taught myself Python for the purpose of conducting my own research into mathematical analysis of different voting systems. I plan to develop this research further and someday head into grad school, where I'll publish results as they come. I even see myself writing a book at some point, albeit that's around 4 years into the future.

  • I'm actively searching for work. There's nothing I'd love to do more than work full time on Ubuntu and supporting users at this point. Chasing bounties or being community funded is another option I may pursue, given the massive amount of users Wine has.
  • I enjoy reading and writing short essays. Powerful writing is like a clear interface. You stop noticing the words, and instead just get the ideas.

See ScottRitchie/Work for more wikipage


CategoryHomepage

ScottRitchie (last edited 2013-11-03 21:09:12 by 67)