I, Steve Conklin, apply for upload rights for the linux-* packages.

Who I am

I have over ten years experience in open source software, and much longer experience in software and hardware engineering. I am a linux kernel engineer employed by Canonical, and work on the stable updates team. I contribute to several open source amateur radio applications through code contributions, testing, packaging, and advocacy. They include hamlib, fldigi, d-rats, and cwtext.

Past employment includes 9.5 years with Red Hat, where I maintained the userspace security packages and numerous userspace amateur radio applications for both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora. Prior to that, I have 20+ years of software and hardware engineering experience.

My Ubuntu story

My involvement

I first got involved as a user of Ubuntu shortly after leaving employment with Red Hat. When a job opening appeared on the Canonical kernel team, I applied and was hired. Since then I have had various roles on the team, helping to enable new hardware for PC OEMs, helping evaluate and test graphics drivers during the Lucid cycle, and I am now helping perform stable maintenance on all supported released of the Ubuntu kernel.

I founded the Ubuntu-hams and Ubuntu-hams-devel teams, which have become dynamic, growing teams with an active community.

I have participated in conferences and advocated for Ubuntu and Canonical, attending Southeast Linux Fest, Linux Collaborative Summit, Linux Plumber's conference, and Libre Graphics Forum, as well as every UDS since I began working for Canonical.

I have worked with upstream developers to have their applications packaged for Debian, so that they may be available in Ubuntu.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Evaluation of graphics drivers for the Lucid cycle

Founding the Ubuntu-hams community

I'm proud that I help maintain the high quality of the Ubuntu kernel

Areas of work (and more examples)

I have helped enable new hardware (prior to release by manufacturers) to operate well on Ubuntu Linux. I did this in cooperation with the OEM group at Canonical, and working with upstream developers, in particular the graphics driver developers.

I performed a lot of evaluation and testing that supported the decision to release Ubuntu 10.04 with a hybrid kernel that combined the 2.6.32 kernel with the drm stack from 2.6.33. This has proven to be a good combination. This work was done in cooperation with the entire kernel team, but mostly with Andy Whitcroft, Tim Gardner, and Leann Ogasawara.

I have been working on the kernel stable maintenance team, with Stefan Bader (the Ubuntu stable kernel manager) and Brad Figg. We have been coordinating stable updates to the kernel which come from Greg Kroah-Hartman's upstream stable tree, along with other bug fixes. I currently have commit rights for the Ubuntu kernel repositories, and regularly push commits to those.

In the last few months, I have begun performing the packaging for Ubuntu kernel stable releases and have been making sponsored uploads, after having my packages signed by Stefan Bader. I have prepared and uploaded kernel releases for Hardy, Jaunty, Karmic, and Lucid.

I perform many test builds of Ubuntu kernels, and testing of proposed fixes.

The Stable kernel team also has responsibility for kernel security patches, working with the Ubuntu security team, and I expect to work on these in the future.

I have been working in my free time to help package the d-rats application for Debian, and view this as an opportunity to pursue becoming a Debian Developer. I have also had extensive discussions with the upstream developers of an application named cqrlog to help them make changes in order to be able to package that application for Debian (and Ubuntu).

Things I could do better

I could do a better job of communicating what I'm doing to the community in general. A lot of things I work on are interesting, but I seldom take the time to blog about them or to use other social media to talk about what I'm doing.

Plans for the future

General

I'd like to continue to increase my responsibilities as a member of the kernel team, as I gain experience in more of the many aspects of release management.

I plan to continue to be active in my community activities, especially with the Amateur Radio community.

I plan to complete the Debian packaging of the applications I have started on, and to become a Debian Developer. I have a Debian Sponsor and Advocate, and will continue to contribute.

What I like least in Ubuntu

I think that in general, participants in Ubuntu have not done a very good job of articulating the tremendous contributions that Ubuntu is making to open source. The discussion of these contributions has been framed in terms of upstream contributions, number of patches, etc. I think that the contributions which really set Ubuntu apart are mind share, advocacy, ubiquity, ease of use, and a perceptual shift of "Linux" from a vague, geeky concept in the minds of the general public to something associated with value, utility, and general usefulness. I'm proud to be helping to get GNU/Linux into the hands of so many people who have never used it before. I wish we did did a better job of communicating this.

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

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Stefan Bader

General feedback

Steve has been preparing kernel uploads for the stable releases for four months now. He caught on pretty quick and I had no issues with any of the recent packages. I trust him to be able to keep up the good work.

Specific Experiences of working together

Steve is moving in to take over my role as a Stable Maintainer and has been taken care of the master trees, reviewing and applying patches from outside or from other team-members. He has taken up an active role on improving the process and to keep things moving.

Areas of Improvement

We need to improve practice in the area of security releases but this has only been prevented by the amount of other work to be done.

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Tim Gardner

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I've appointed Steve as the next stable release manager beginning with the Natty Narwhal UDS.
That assignment implies the level of confidence that I have in Steve's abilities as I consider the
maintenance of our existing kernels to be extremely important.

Tim Gardner
Aug 27, 2010
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Leann Ogasawara

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=== General Feedback ===

I have worked with Steve on an ongoing basis since he's joined the
Ubuntu kernel team.  He is now preparing to take over as the Ubuntu
Stable Kernel Release Maintainer.  I have full confidence in the work he
does and I give him my full endorsement.

=== Specific Experiences of working together ===

Steve very quickly stepped in to help ease the load of Stable Kernel
Maintenance.  He's taken over some of the work for stable kernel patch
reviews from upstream as well as SRU patch review from other kernel
developers.  He's been granted access to push to all of our main git
kernel trees, and recently has been responsible for packaging and
uploading our stable kernels.  Through this whole process Steve has not
been shy to ask questions and seek guidance from myself and others.
He's also been pro-active in helping document each of the
responsibilities of the Stable Kernel Release Maintainer for future
candidates.

=== Areas of Improvement ===

Steve needs little improvement that wouldn't best be gained through direct
experience, which is why it is time he be granted upload rights for the
kernel packages.
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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.''
=== Areas of Improvement ===