I, Dan Bungert, am applying for core-dev.

I am applying because:

• I'd like to reduce the burden on my sponsors - work for Foundations is heavily focused on things in the main component, and it would also help with +1 work
• I'd like to eliminate delays in getting my work sponsored.

Who I am / My Ubuntu story

Hi there. My name is Dan, and I am a long time fan of Debian/Ubuntu. I first experimented with Linux by attempting some sort of crude dual-boot of my parents computer.

I was a Debian Developer from 2001 - 2006, with some light work around window managers and other smaller packages.

I joined HP in 2007, where I had the opportunity to work on a proprietary Debian derivative called ThinPro. Later ThinPro would be "similar to Ubuntu". This work entailed traditional software development and Debian-style packaging against LTS releases from Lucid to Bionic. I continued work on ThinPro until 2020, and had the opportunity to contribute a little of that upstream to the FreeRDP and lxqt-panel projects.

In January of 2021 I joined Canonical's Ubuntu Foundations team, where I have been able to focus most of my time on installer related matters, but also get to do some "distro work" and contribute fixes to many packages.

I reside in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA with my wife and two children.

I became an Ubuntu Member on Aug-5-2021. My core-dev application was accepted at the Aug-22-2022 meeting.

My involvement / Areas of work

• Subiquity has been my primary focus since joining Canonical.

• A big part of that is changes to support the ubuntu-desktop-installer project. Lately I've been almost singularly focused on partitioning related items.

• Fixes and improvements merged to other installer related areas - curtin, probert, and livecd-rootfs.

• Wrote autoinstall-generator tool to help transition people over to the Subiquity installer

• 79+ uploads sponsored

• 9 +1 maintenance shifts so far

• Have performed a SRU (of my own crash bug :facepalm:) and a MIR. Have also helped with SRU verification (LP: #1929449, LP: #1934650). I also have helped with setting up the SRU description on some other LPs, such as on LP: #1821412 and at least one more that is eluding my searches.

• Worked with the seeds a bit, to improve the seed for the Canary ISO. It needed some things from the live-server iso. Also some related ubuntu-cdimage changes.

• I have collaborated with the Desktop, Server, Security, and Snapd teams.

  • Most of the Desktop team interaction is installer related - we're all eager to get a great ubuntu-desktop-installer into everyone's hands.

  • Server interaction is somewhat similar, in the sense of installer interactions. I implemented a stable release process for Subiquity at the suggestion of @paride. I am collaborating on cloud-init items with @chad.strong.

  • As for Security, I worked with @sarnold as part of the Subiquity 22.02.1 on the password leakage issue there.

  • I have worked a bit with the snapd team, on items such as https://github.com/snapcore/core-base/pull/51 and contributed to fixes on LP: #1943077

Things I could do better

The list of things a software engineer could learn is approximately infinite, but I have chosen a few:

• Interact more with git-ubuntu / gbp
• While I have interacted with the hints system a few times, I still find it baffling.
• While I'm getting more efficient at fixing autopkgtest failures, I'm not where I want to be.
• I don't yet have the level of understanding of the install media creation process that I want to have.

Plans for the future

General

• Certain segments of our userbase are very invested in d-i, and they can be quite vocal about this. I'm doing my best to help prioritize the most pressing of issues and gaps. I'm quite happy with the recent work to give Subiquity the 'use_gap' feature to do a guided install into existing free space, and I look forward to showing more of the partitioning improvements to Server installer users.
• Related, my autoinstall-generator tool is already out of date and needs more coverage of preseed capabilities. I had the opportunity recently help move a non-trivial preseed to autoinstall, and I would like to make this process easier.

What I like least in Ubuntu

• Coming from a downstream distribution, I had a mix of knowledge. Some quite relevant and correct, others actively in conflict with Ubuntu best practice. Learning the correct way of doing things was, and continues to be, challenging.
• The wiki is simulataneously some of the best process information and horrendously out of date, possibly on the same page. Recent wiki login issues aren't helping. I doubt this is news to anybody reading 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@.

Lukas Märdian

I have not sponsored a whole lot for Dan, just a single sync. But I've always been impressed by the level of detail he puts into his work that I see during our day-to-day business as part of the same squad within Foundations. I feel like he's ready to be core-dev.

-- slyon 2022-08-18 07:17:08

Robie Basak

I've not worked much with Dan, but I did see some of his interactions on the Debian MySQL/MariaDB packaging list. I was pleased to see his positive engagement there, leading to MariaDB packaging being in good shape and in sync in Ubuntu on that particular issue. I think the social aspect of being productive and constructive, communicating well, etc, with developers across our ecosystem is important, and so worth speaking to here.

Endorsements

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

SteveLangasek

As Dan was previously a DD, I have approached sponsorship of his work assuming that he would need very little handholding from me, and I have not been disappointed. I have sponsored 6 of his packages, including a fairly complicated integration of a new upstream version of grep to fix a build failure which he addressed masterfully. None of the packages I sponsored for him required amendment, or follow-up fixes. He has also been very effective at doing +1 maintenance work, working across the archive to keep the devel series moving. I am of the opinion that he should be given core-dev immediately so that he can be even more effective in his work as a member of Canonical's Ubuntu Foundations team.

Graham Inggs

General feedback

I've worked with Dan for just over a year and have sponsored four uploads and two syncs for him. The quality has been good and no changes were needed. I trust Dan is ready to be a core-dev right now.

Specific Experiences of working together

We worked together on getting numpy to migrate with python 3.10 as a supported version. This required a lot of autopkgtest poking and culminated in sync'ing numpy from Debian including Dan's changes (LP: #1951860).

Areas of Improvement

I think Dan could do with more experience on transitions, but I trust him to be able to learn on the job and ask questions if needed.

William Wilson

General feedback

I have sponsored 8 packages for Dan, and have only ever had very minor corrections to give. When there was something to be improved upon, I never had to say it twice. Dan is a fast learner and as others have pointed out his DD experience has given him considerable packaging knowledge. Dan is never afraid to ask questions and always has very productive +1 maintenance shifts.

Specific Experiences of working together

In addition to the packages I have sponsored for Dan, I have worked with him during his +1 maintenance shifts. He always thoroughly investigates autopkgtest failures before asking for them to be retried. While working with dan on the hddemux issue he demonstrated good knowledge of architecture specific packaging, and Ubuntu specific concepts such as the autopkgtest environment and the relationship between different pockets of the archive.

Areas of Improvement

As others have mentioned, Dan has not led a transition. However, he has worked on the ffmpeg transition, which leaves me confident that he would be capable of leading one.

Michael Hudson-Doyle

General feedback

As I said on his application for Ubuntu Membership, I have worked with Dan since the day he started at Canonical and have since that day been impressed with his knowledge and the care he puts into his work.

In particular, I definitely trust Dan to ask first if he finds himself in unfamiliar territory and not just push on regardless, which is in some sense the most important thing for a core dev.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have not sponsored a huge number of packages from him partly because I wanted him to establish relationships with other developers, but I have discussed bugs with him regularly and always found his +1 maintenance reports to be thoughtful and worth reading.

Areas of Improvement

There are areas of Ubuntu development where I am not sure Dan has much experience yet (working on a large multi-level transition or MIR or seed management and germinate) but I'm confident he can learn all this stuff as required.

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.''
## Full list of sponsored packages can be generated here:
##  https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi
=== Areas of Improvement ===

CategoryCoreDevApplication