I, Tim Lunn, apply for PPU on ubuntu GNOME packageset and MOTU.

Who I am

I'm a long-time linux enthusiast and gnome-shell fan, that spends my free time, messing around with GNOME. I am the technical Lead for Ubuntu GNOME.

My Ubuntu story

I have been using Ubuntu since way back to the Warty days (before that I used debian for years), for the most part I was content with gnome2, I just took whatever I was given and just existed as a 'user'. Then came gnome-shell, I was somewhat excited by this and saw great potential, however at the time it was really quite broken on Ubuntu. Ultimately this was my trigger to getting involved in GNOME and now Ubuntu.

At the time, I started out messing around with a few gnome-shell extensions, then writing extensions, which led to fixing upstream GNOME bugs. By the time Jeremy announced Ubuntu GNOME remix, I had quite a good understanding of the gnome-shell stack, and needless to say that came in very handy in getting the first Ubuntu GNOME Release together!

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Have been involved with the Ubunhttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/Alpha1/UbuntuGNOME?action=edit&editor=texttu GNOME project since the start.

For Ubuntu GNOME Remix 12.10 (Unoffical), I fixed quite a large number of blocker bugs during our very short dev cycle for this release.

During Saucy cycle I took over Technical Lead for Ubuntu GNOME.

For Trusty have been working on getting 3.10 bits in place. Just got the gdm/gnome-shell 3.10 uploaded.

Packaging on gnome3 PPA's.

I have two gnome-shell extensions,

• system-monitor (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/120/system-monitor/)

• multiple monitor planels (https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/323/multiple-monitor-panels/)

Have contributed a bunch of upstream bugfixes to GNOME. Many of these have been related to Ubuntu specific bugs. I have many upstream GNOME contacts which helps!

Ported gjs/gnome-shell to the Spidermonkey engine based of Firefox 17. Then spent a lot of time prodding mozilla people and patching their build system trying to get an official release. Which landed in saucy with huge gains in performance and much improved memory usage. Now the cycle begins again for Spidermonkey 24 which has been released and is the default for GNOME 3.12 branches.

GNOME Foundation Member

Areas of work

My main focus at this point is gnome-shell and the rest of the GNOME stack. I tend to work upstream wherever possible, since I really don't want to add to the often insane patch deltas on many of the GNOME packages.

I am pretty familar with the code base for Core GNOME stack, gdm, gnome-session, gnome-desktop, gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-control-center, mutter and gnome-shell.

During Saucy I did a huge amount of work getting the 3.8 packages into shape in particular gnome-settings-daemon and getting gnome-control-center 3.6 working with that.

Things I could do better

I probably need to forward more work onto Debian.

Plans for the future

General

The state of gnome-shell etc in Ubuntu has improved immensly since the start of Ubuntu GNOME, it really is night and day comparing 12.10 vs 13.10. So now my main goal at the moment is trying to encourage more contributions to the Ubuntu GNOME project. I have been working with a number of new contributors, trying to get them up to speed on packaging etc.

What I like least in Ubuntu

There are still some pain points caused by the overlap between Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME packagesets, although that is improving slowly.

At times I find the code quality of patches questionable, I think alot of patches slip through the cracks without a proper review, since many of the better packagers who are sponsoring things don't have much programming background.

More generally, I think more effort needs to go into supporting new contributors. Without direct contact with a sponsor it can takes weeks for patches to be reviewed etc. Early on I found this very disconcerting, although these days I just bug the relevant people. Although it does seem that the sponsorship queues have been kept more under control so far in the Trusty cycle.

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Testimonials

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@.

I have joined Ubuntu GNOME in July, 2013 and had the chance to know Tim. For 3 years now contributing to Ubuntu Communities, I have never seen a better developer like Tim as of today. He has my full help and support (too bad and sad that I am not a developer) and definitely got my huge +1. He deserves the appreciation and I highly recommend him and support his application. amjjawad

Tim is a true natural leader, someone you can rely on for hard work. I have been using Ubuntu GNOME since its very first days and I am also a member of the Ubuntu GNOME Team; the day Tim became the head of the project, everything definitely changed for better. Tim is one of those men whom it is a pleasure to work with. His technical skills do not cease to impress me. aldomann

I recently joined the Ubuntu GNOME community after contributing to other Ubuntu family projects. I specifically did this because Tim, as the lead developer for Ubuntu GNOME, has worked hard to establish a community and atmosphere where all members of the contributing community, technical and non-technical alike, are welcomed, respected, and encouraged to learn and share. In short, Tim has set the Ubuntu GNOME community on a path towards healthy, positive and productive growth now and in the future. He has my respect as a community leader. dbyentzen

Since Tim recruited me to help with gnome packaging, i have learnt a lot from him about gnome. He is very dedicated to the project is a a huge part of it's current level of success. I support his application for MOTU wholeheartedly. Noskcaj

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Endorsements

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

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)

General feedback

I sponsored a couple of changes for Tim and I was quite happy with the work he did.

Specific Experiences of working together

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cogl/+bug/1163025

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-documents/+bug/1262082

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/epiphany-browser/+bug/1260942 - a bit of confusion about a version from PPA, apart from that good work!

Iain Lane (Laney)

I've sponsored a few things for Tim which have been fine. More generally, due to the nature of the packages involved, the desktop team has a reasonable amount of overlap with the GNOME remix team. I've found Tim willing to do the grunt work requried to support Ubuntu desktop while pushing for the development that Ubuntu GNOME wants. A good example is his work on the update of gnome-settings-daemon to the 3.8 series (here), which was accompanied by an undertaking to fix any issues that affected Ubuntu Desktop arising from it, and was followed through on.

I'd like to see Tim joining ~ubuntu-desktop at some point in the not too distant future. Before he could get my endorsement for that, though, I'd need to be made totally confident that he put the needs of the whole of Ubuntu above those of Ubuntu GNOME. I'm still slightly concerned that there is a tendency not to do this that leads to the pushing of new upstream releases that aren't quite as integrated as they should be (for example the new epiphany-browser - to Tim's credit he did follow up with a patch to fix the issues, but it'd have been good to spot this before the upload). And there was a gnome-settings-daemon upload in the Saucy cycle (so some time ago) that was inappropriate and had to be reverted.

So in summary, I think the requested upload rights are appropriate and that with a small amount of work improving consideration of the impact of changes on the entire distribution Tim could be a valued member of the desktop team.

Sebastien Bacher

Tim has been quite active in desktop work and discussions for over a cycle now. I've reviewed and sponsored some of the work he has been doing. His change are usually good quality and he's open to feedback/change things when needed. He's nice to work with and usually trying to do the right thing (working with upstream most of the time for example).

In summary, +1 from me for MOTU/GNOME package set.

That said, I agree with what Laney wrote. While you are doing good work, some of your updates have Ubuntu GNOME in mind, and overlook the impact of the changes on other desktops (you proposed a few updates that created issues for Unity or other non GNOME desktops, those got fixed but only after other caught the issues in review/bugs reports). That's not an issue for MOTU/GNOME set but something that you should try to improve if you are thinking about apply for desktop set later on (which you probably should, we would welcome extra hands there).

Martin Pitt

General feedback

I have sponsored quite a lot of packages for Tim; the ones from below plus more changes which he committed to the desktop Vcs-Bzr: branches; the ones below were just fine, so I have sufficient trust in his packaging skills to do uploads by himself. He is highly motivated and one of the core members of the Ubuntu GNOME remix, discusses and coordinates his work in #ubuntu-desktop with the Ubuntu desktop team, and is very adamant in fixing things upstream to avoid Ubuntu deltas (*applauds*). We also worked together on Apport a bit, he runs retracer bots for the Ubuntu GNOME PPA.

I also noticed some hiccups/conflicts like Iain and Sébastian already pointed out in the past, but I haven't noticed them recently any more.

I fully support his application for becoming a MOTU/Ubuntu GNOME uploader, and want to thank you for your work!

Specific Experiences of working together

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-control-center/1:3.6.3-0ubuntu26

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/3.6.3.1-0ubuntu9

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/3.6.1-0ubuntu6, https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/3.6.1-0ubuntu4.1

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/3.8.3-0ubuntu5

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/3.8.3-0ubuntu5

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glib2.0/2.39.1-0ubuntu3

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-maps/3.10.0-1ubuntu1

• https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/3.10.0.1-0ubuntu2

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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 ===

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Previous Endorsements

(From Contributing Developer Application)

CategoryMOTUApplication CategoryPerPackageUploaderApplication