Ubuntu Wiki

About Me

I am Nicholas Skaggs. Man, thinker, dog-owner. I have a wonderful wife named Stacy, and live in sunny Florida, USA. I have run ubuntu since Hoary Hedgehog and ubuntu has been a key part of my growing up with linux and OSS. I lurked for awhile after installing, but joined ubuntu forums in 2006, and launchpad in 2007. Most recently I have taken on the role of QA Community Coordinator for Canonical to act as a liason to the greater ubuntu QA community.

I suppose there's a bit more you can dig up about me if your so inclined; serial-coder for example did an excellent interview recently which describes more.

http://serial-coder.co.uk/blog/2012/02/an-interview-with-balloons/

Contact Information

Contributions

My first ubuntu contributions probably came through the forums which are a wonderful source of community and information. During the dapper/edgy/feisty days I had a brother printer, which had some finicky drivers. I helped to support installing and running this printer via my best bash skills (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2277190#post2277190)

More recently I have attempted to become more involved in the ubuntu community. I started by attending UDS-P last year and submitting my first patch and merge-request for software in ubuntu (http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/update-manager/main/revision/2278). I joined the QA community shortly after and ultimately began working in my role as community coordinator for Canonical in January of 2012. Since then I,

• Helped migrate and update old testcases from testcase wiki to checkbox

• Created a proposal to help better organize the QA community and solicited feedback (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/ProposedTeamStructure)

• Created a targeted list of applications to test and helped make sure testcases and coverage existed for these applications (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/CriticalPackages)

• Performed a survey of current QA landscape in ubuntu, in order to help increase awareness, participation and communication in the community (http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/03/whos-who-on-quality-in-ubuntu.html)

• Host weekly ubuntu QA meetings on IRC for the QA community
• Created checkbox-app-testing to help deliver manual application tests to the desktop for those running U+1
  • 2 releases, 18 contributors (including me), 26 test cases covering core desktop applications
• Held 13 calls for testing, bringing 8 different developers/teams together with hundreds of end-users to help test

• Participated in several ISO testing events, coordinated 'adopt an iso' program (http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/04/would-you-adopt-iso.html, http://www.theorangenotebook.com/2012/04/iso-adoptions.html) for over 100 users

• Track lead for QA at UDS-Q
• Contributed a charm, documentation and evangelized for the juju project
• Active on the U+1 forums for the precise cycle

• Active on askubuntu, gave and received reputation; earned 12 badges (http://askubuntu.com/users/32111/balloons)

• Attended several greater ubuntu community sessions, including global jam with Florida Loco team

Future Goals

I want to help make ubuntu be the benchmark for quality in open source projects, especially open source operating systems. Ubuntu is uniquely poised to be a leader in this area and to contribute tools and best practices to the rest of the FOSS ecosystem.

Testimonials

If you know me and have something nice to say, please leave a comment here.

• I'm very lucky to have Nicholas as a team mate. What I like most about him is his good nature and that he never seems to lose his sense of humour. Although he had little time during last cycle, he put together a great tool to ease manual testing of Desktop programs and collected the results. I was impressed really impressed how quickly he got everything together. I wish Nicholas good luck, but it's clear to me already that he's a great addition to Ubuntu's QA world. -- dholbach 2012-05-22 16:03:26

• With Nicholas taking over the as the co-ordinator of QA that team has made great strides and it is a pleasure to work with him. His plans for the future are well thought out and taken with full discussion between all who care about QA. He is certainly well worthy of his full Ubuntu membership and I ask that you look favourably upon his application.. phillw 2012-05-30 19:43:30

• Nicholas has made a major impact on QA & community -- where we (read "I") had not been successful before. I am glad of his work and ideas, and appreciate his willingness to discuss and reach a consensus. He is certainly worthy of the Ubuntu membership, and I will be there to cheer. Hggdh2 2011-07-31 01:40:05