CoreDevApplication

I, Sergio Durigan Junior, apply for core-dev in order to be able to better perform my duties as member of the Ubuntu Server Team and the Ubuntu Project in general.

Name

Sergio Durigan Junior

Launchpad page

https://launchpad.net/~sergiodj

Wiki page

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SergioDuriganJunior

Who I am

I am a software engineer, and have been a member of the Ubuntu Server team since April 2020, doing merges, bug fixing and packaging work.

I have been a Debian Developer since 2018. I am involved in the New Members project (I'm an Application Manager there), and also maintain quite a few packages there, including pagure :-).

Before joining Canonical, I worked for Red Hat in the GNU Debugger project for 10 years, doing all kinds of stuff there. It was an amazing experience, but after so long I wanted to do something different.

My Ubuntu story

I remember to this day when I entered the Computer Science course and, during the welcoming class, they were distributing installation CDs of this new GNU/Linux distro called "Ubuntu". It was back in 2005, when Ubuntu shipped the CDs for free to people. Back then, I had been using GNU/Linux for some time already, but I decided to give Ubuntu a try and liked what I saw. The distro was beautiful, modern, very easy to install and to use.

Even though I didn't continue using Ubuntu at the time (I decided to try Gentoo, and then Fedora), it was impossible not to follow what was happening in the project since it started to be the force behind some interesting things, like Mir, the Ubuntu Phone, Launchpad, etc. On top of that, I managed to convince my family to try Ubuntu on their computers, and they still use it to this day!

My involvement with Debian increased greatly back in 2013, when I started to maintain my own services (email, XMPP, website), and Debian was the default choice for servers. Then, I started maintaing packages in 2014, became a DD in 2018, and now I use Debian in my personal computer and Ubuntu in my work computer.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

FTBFS fixes

Merges & sync requests

SRUs & bugfixes

Reviews

+1 maintenance

I've done a lot of things during my +1 maintenance shifts. You can read all about them in my reports:

QA Regression Testing

Bug Triage - Ubuntu Server

The Ubuntu Server team has a bug triage rotation, and I started being part of it recently. Here are the reports I've made:

Areas of work

I mainly work on Ubuntu Server packages, since I am part of the team. I also help with +1 maintenance (Foundations), and have to interact with them sometimes.

Due to my background, I try to pay attention to toolchain packages in general, although I haven't had much time to dedicate to this recently.

My work as part of the Ubuntu Server team has required me to learn more about Go packaging, Samba, SSSD, adcli, amongst other technologies.

Things I could do better

As someone used to dealing with bugs every day, I would like to be able to help more and more the Ubuntu community to fix these bugs. I participate in the triage rotation that the Ubuntu Server team does, but that only covers a small percentage of the bugs we have.

I could also learn more about the idiosyncrasies of Ubuntu's release process (compared to Debian's), so that I can do a better job merging packages and making sure they migrate correctly.

Plans for the future

General

Aside from keep maintaining the Ubuntu Server packages, I also intend to increase my involvement in the +1 maintenance activity. I would also like to be more involved with a specific team, like the SRU, MIR, or some other. I still have to decide which one :-).

I am spearheading the efforts to launch a debuginfod instance on Debian, and will work to set one up for Ubuntu as well.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Lack of documentation, especially for developers who want to get involved with the project. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to find something Ubuntu-specific (i.e., something that does not apply/relate to Debian), and I think we could do a better job at writing down procedures and instructions, and also making sure they're up-to-date. I know this is something that demands a lot of time, and we are usually overloaded with work, but I think it's also something useful that can bring a lot of value to the community in general.

Comments

If you'd like to comment, but are not the applicant or a sponsor, do it here. Don't forget to sign with @SIG@.

Robie Basak

Sergio is a colleague of mine on the Canonical Server Team. I support his application. I think he is ready for core dev.

I have barely sponsored any uploads for Sergio as other colleagues have mentored, reviewed and sponsored his work. However I do hear regular reports from Sergio on our daily team standups together with details of his ongoing work. Based on these interactions I have developed the opinion that Sergio knows what he's doing when it comes to packaging, understands Ubuntu release processes, is conscientious about doing the right thing, and asks when he's unsure.

-- racb 2020-10-30 13:06:53

Endorsements

Andreas Hasenack

General feedback

Sergio, also being a Debian Developer, is always very conscious of how important it is to submit our changes back to Debian and upstream. The main consequence is that his changes are always very well polished and thoughtful. I think he has already worked in enough areas around Ubuntu processes that he can become a Core Developer, and there is no question about his Debian packaging skills.

Specific Experiences of working together

Packages I sponsored

This list includes Debian merges and an SRU. His test case for the SRU was well done and one would basically just have to copy & paste the commands he wrote.

When working on squid, he forwarded many changes to upstream, which shows the good level of cooperation with upstreams that we expect from Ubuntu Core Developers.

Areas of Improvement

One suggestion I have is to, when asked to present a situation, case, or problem, start with the high level view, and then delve into details as the discussion progresses.

-- ahasenack 2020-10-20 19:25:33

Lucas Kanashiro

General feedback

Sergio is my teammate in the Canonical Server team. His packaging skills are very good (he is already a DD) and he can definitely be trusted to become a core-dev.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have been working closely with Sergio in our LMA stack effort. I sponsored the telegraf package for him and it was error-free and good quality (including DEP-8 tests). He is working to MIR telegraf and he did some nice experiments to try to use some Go dependencies from the system instead of the embedded ones, his very detailed approach and willingness to improve is very welcomed.

Moreover, I have been reviewing & sponsoring some of the work he presented above. Again, he is always worried with the quality of his work (contributing back to Debian when it's appropriated) and stick to all the procedures in place (when in doubt he does not hesitate to ask). I have also re-triggered many autopkgtest executions for him during his +1 maint shifts, all of them based on real facts and not just assumptions.

Here is the list of sponsored packages (however, I think I reviewed more packages from him but I was not the sponsor):

https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?render=html&sponsor=*Kanashiro*&sponsor_search=name&sponsoree=Sergio*&sponsoree_search=name

Areas of Improvement

Sergio is ready to become a core-dev, and now it is time to start helping others and become more involved with the wider community (not just Server).

Bryce Harrington

General feedback

As others have mentioned, Sergio is very engaged with mastering the procedural specifics for different kinds of packaging work. He takes discrepancies pointed out in reviews as great learning experiences and seldom have I needed to mention the same detail more than once. He's also pitched in to help document processes, with equal attention to getting the details correct. I've pushed him to apply for core dev now, even though he feels he still has a lot to learn - but the fact he can be trusted to seek out more advice when encountering new packaging situations is precisely why I think he's ready, and why he'll add some excellent value to the core dev team.

Specific Experiences of working together

With the other Ubuntu Server team members, I've helped with onboarding him to Canonical and advising as he learns the ropes. As part of that I've reviewed a number of his packages:

https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?render=html&sponsor=Bryce*Harrington&sponsor_search=name&sponsoree=Sergio*&sponsoree_search=name

Areas of Improvement

I think his positive nature and master of procedures would make him an excellent teacher as we on-board new server team contributors, and so encourage him to start mastering packaging teaching techniques. Smile :-)

-- bryce 2020-10-21 03:50:06

Christian Ehrhardt

General feedback

I sponsored a bunch of packages for Sergio already, but also have seen him work on merge-reviews, discussions and such. I consider his contributions good so far and trust his self-critical approach that results in well tested and correctly written good uploads. As others have mentioned he knows the business of the packaging work well and does a great job of ensuring - by submissions to upstreams & Debian - we are not digging our own grave by adding more and more maintenance debt where not needed.

Specific Experiences of working together

On one hand I sponsored a bunch of packages already - and so far I was always happy to find well prepared, tested and thought through uploads. But on the other hand that is kind of expected, it is the uncommon cases that are sometimes better to decide about someone. In Sergio's case one comes to mind where I think he handled things well. We had a case where one could either "be lost in the debug rabbit hole forever" or "tell the user, sorry". Sergio was able to find an efficient way in between like "not a perfect fix, but getting it to work without much regression risk". And as odd as it sounds, sometimes this consciousness to be able to consider such approaches is needed. A bunch of otherwise awesome developers miss that, so I like that he is able to see all grayscales in between Smile :-) . He'll be a great addition to the Ubuntu Family.

Areas of Improvement

I guess for now he just needs to continue, pick up more packages - maybe a transition or two and also some seed changes. I'm confident he'll do fine but those are the obvious next steps.

Furthermore I'm teased by his mention of debuginfod, for years enabling debug packages and installing them felt like a step that should be easier. While growing deeper into defining Ubuntu maybe a service like such could eliminate the need for "enable-src, apt update, apt install" entirely in most of the cases. Who else than someone with his debugger experience would be better suited to give that a shot?

Rafael David Tinoco

General feedback

I sponsored packages and reviewed many of his merge requests for the last 2 cycles.

Sergio has ramped up quickly in his Ubuntu collaboration and showed himself very queen to learn all bits and bytes of how Ubuntu did its development. He would always seek the best documented approach to deal with a problem instead of just trying to do something from his head and diverging from what Ubuntu team expected.

He was already a Debian developer before joining Canonical Server Team and that, for sure, was a big win as he was already aware of all the package engineering responsibilities and collaboration efforts. Things as feed-backing Debian and Upstream projects were natural to him, as well as SRUing important fixes.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have seen Sergio doing merges, SRUs and debugging work. I'm happy that, to gain experience, instead of just assuming he already had, he went to the "server-triage" queue bugs and started working on those. Those are the bugs that are "Ubuntu Server" related but we never have time to go back to them. That served not only for him as a good experience to apply for a CoreDev apart from all the regular cycle work we do (like doing merges, uploading and following migration excuses).

That type of behavior shows that he is into the community already: not only focusing in something that has been assigned to him as part of his day-by-day job.. but seeing the OS big picture and where he can contribute better for the OS as a whole.

With all that I really think he would an incredible addiction to the CoreDev team.

Areas of Improvement

I think Sergio is very responsible and worried about everything he does, it's hard to find something that I could mention as a direct improvement if not the generic "we can always improve by doing more and trying to achieve an utopic perfection". I think following 1 or 2 big transitions closely would be very good for him, but I don't think that is a blocker (not even close) for him to be a CoreDev now.

One thing that comes to my mind, though, is more in a personal side. I think Sergio could be more pragmatic on feedback given and let his good instincts to rule a bit more. All his calls - that I have seen - were always good and balanced so, after the first review and/or feedback received, be pragmatic and follow your instincts more instead of being unsure where to go next.

Either way, I really hope your application works and it will be a pleasure to have you working with us in the Ubuntu Core Dev group.

-- rafaeldtinoco 2020-10-21 15:55:30

Gianfranco Costamagna

General feedback

I worked with Sergio a lot in the Debian area, and mostly never had to request changes, or nitpick on packaging stuff. He knows what he does well, upstreams patches when needed, and tries to keep packaging changes as simple as possible. I unfortunately have not enough knownledge to judge on his Core-Dev application, because (sadly) I don't remember if I have ever sponsored a package for him in main. So my judgement is unfortunately only related to his packaging skills, and I really like them.

Specific Experiences of working together

Lots in Debian, I should have sponsored a package in main, but udd search returns zero for some reasons.

Areas of Improvement

None, maybe start from merges, and don't forget to forward to Debian and Upstream the delta when possible!

-- costamagnagianfranco 2020-10-22 07:55:30

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 ===

CategoryPerPackageUploaderApplication

SergioDuriganJunior/CoreDevApplication (last edited 2020-10-30 19:03:13 by sergiodj)