I, Wookey, apply for core-dev rights.

Who I am

I'm a long-time Debian developer, having joined up in 2001 (https://nm.debian.org/nmstatus.php?email=wookey%40aleph1.co.uk), working professionally on Arm Linux since 2000ish, at Aleph One Ltd, Toby Chruchill Ltd, and now Linaro (as an ARM secondee). I've been a free software developer since 1990 when I started writing Survex with Olly Betts (http://survex.com/).

My Ubuntu story

I largely ignored Ubuntu (apart from installing and maintaing it for inexperienced users I was responsible for, such as my mother and my boss at Aleph One) until I joined Linaro, where (almost) all the work so far has been done using Ubuntu process and in the distro, so I had to find out how it worked, and how things were done. I was actually quite surprised how different the processes are from Debian despite the similarities in the software itself.

I have used the Ubuntu patch-tracking stuff and found a few useful patches for my packages, which have been incorporated/upstreamed as appropriate.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

The Psion netbook project was a particularly fine effort beck in 2004/5, showing what can be done with a competent team. YAFFS (nand flash filesystem) is the other major things I've been involved with of note. A couple of the articles I wrote on arm kernel porting back in 2002ish are still the top google hits(!) http://www.glomationinc.com/PortingLinuxKernel.pdf

Within Ubuntu I'd not claim any particularly notable work, but I've worked on xdeb a fair amount, put pdebuild-cross and multistrap into the archive, improved pkg-config for cross-work, and helped Vorlon with multiarch fallout. I have a selection of pending patches for dpkg cross-build-dependencies and bootstrapping which will make their way in to Debian/Ubuntu now that Natty has been released.

My significant work has been more in analysis, documentation and specifications for fixing of the cyclic-dependency and cross-building issues, rather than reams of code.

I am pleased that Ubuntu has given some priority to cross-building so that cross-building FTBFS bugs can be filed as more than just 'wishlist'.

Areas of work

These are my Debian packages, which are essentially cave-surveying and emdebian/cross-building packages. http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=wookey@debian.org I work closely with the various upstreams, all of whom I know well, and retain good relations with.

I also have an interest in domotics and building-design packages and have done packaging work on those but not generally uploaded them due to recognising that my time is limited and there is no point uploading things I won't have time to maintain to a reasonable standard.

Within Ubuntu I have worked largely with Steve Langasek, Loic Minier and Colin Watson.

Things I could do better

I made a bit of a pigs ear of updating xdeb in Debian and Ubuntu in parallel, due to not using bzr branches and merging the way the rest of the team expected and putting a version into Debian with the same version number as in Ubuntu but slightly different functionality. This was due to not properly appreciating the relationship between the distros when 'upstream' is effectively Ubuntu bzr. That still isn't quite properly sorted, but will be soon.

Plans for the future

General

I expect to be driving the 'cross-building and bootstrapping Ubuntu and Debian' effort over the next few months, which touches a lot of packages. Not having to bug someone else about uploads all the time would be a good thing. Emet suggested I apply here for core-dev-ness, and I guess that is sensible, (if you all thing I'm not going to screw things up too badly

What I like least in Ubuntu

Having to develop software (xdeb) via bzr and team code-review has been a bit of a culture shock. I've always previously worked where I was ultimate arbiter on uploads and what was done in the Debian (and thus Ubuntu) versions of software. Still, I think I've got the hang of it now, and it does catch errors and improve code quality, in exchange for being rather cumbersome. This isn't a dislike as such - just something different to get used to.

Comments

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Endorsements

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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 ===