I, Stefano Rivera, apply for core-dev.

Who I am

I'm a 27-year old Linux geek living in Cape Town. Been enjoying life at University for the last 7 years or so, but recently abandoned by MSc and escaped into the working world. My day job is currently wrangling deployment systems at a nice little web start-up. Naturally, we use Ubuntu LTS

My Ubuntu story

I'm a long time Debian user (since the days of RPM hell in the late 90s). After not seeing the point in Ubuntu for a few years, I eventually admitted that it made rather a neat fairly recent system, and thanks to its good power management ran it my primary laptop from breezy->precise.

I always intended to get involved in the development side of Debian, and eventually did so when I had a package I wanted in the archive. At the same time, I dipped my toes into Ubuntu development, as it seemed useful to be involved too, it's where most of our users would be, not Debian.

My involvement

I've been a MOTU since 2010 and a Debian Developer since early 2011. I've attended the last 3 UDSs (and a few before, remotely), and Debconf11.

I tend to maintain Python-related packages in Debian. In Ubuntu, I am far more of a generalist, working on anything that needs to be done. As universe has more than enough work that needs doing, I don't tend to touch main much, but when I do, it's a pain to have to go through the sponsorship process. It'd be much easier if I was a core-dev :). A few of the packages I maintain in Debian are in Ubuntu main, and occasionally my gardening crosses the borders into main. I also go through the sponsorship queue fairly regularly, and would be able to help out with more than just universe packages, if I was a core-dev.

Since the beginning of the oneiric cycle, I've served on the release team, representing MOTU at the meetings (on the rare occasions when we have something to say). And since October, on the DMB, hi guys

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Here's what the sponsorship miner picks up:

Areas of work

Most packaging areas.

Things I could do better

If there were more hours in the day...

Plans for the future

I'm slowly trying to bring up a pypy stack (in Debian). But I'm currently waiting for Python build system improvements before it gets any further (multibuild, for those who've heard of the plan).

General

What I like least in Ubuntu

Does nobody know what feature freeze means? I'm very easy-going with granting FFes, it'd sometimes be nice if people didn't take them for granted.

On another topic, we always need more developers. I haven't seen many new faces in a while. We have some plans here (there were many UDS discussions on the topic).

Burnout. My Ubuntu involvement seems to involve many cycles of attention and burnout. I'm not entirely sure why. Fortunately the lack of maintainer-lock in Ubuntu means this doesn't interfere with other people's work.

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@.

Endorsements

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

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)

General feedback

Stefano has done a fantastic job in the Ubuntu development world for quite a while. It's a pleasure to work with him and I'd trust him with core developer status.

I particularly like his attention to detail and his involvement in projects related to development infrastructure.

Specific Experiences of working together

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-python-desktop/2.30.0-3ubuntu1

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nose/1.1.2-3

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-wadllib/1.3.0-2

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nose/1.1.2-2

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-gd/0.56+dfsg-3

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fpm2/0.78-1ubuntu1

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pybliographer/1.2.12-3.1ubuntu1

Benjamin Drung

General feedback

It is a pleasant experience to work with Stefano. He and I are the main maintainers of ubuntu-dev-tools for quite some time now. We worked together on a bunch of mostly Python programs (for example, distro-info). I fully trust him regarding programming and packaging. In the past, I sponsored 18 uploads to main for him.

Specific Experiences of working together

• https://launchpad.net/bugs/584125

• https://launchpad.net/bugs/987390

Areas of Improvement

Stefano exists only once. We need more of him.

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.''
=== Areas of Improvement ===

CategoryCoreDevApplication