UbuntuBudgieDevApplication

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My prime responsibility is to maintain the current package set that makes up Ubuntu Budgie. Its for this reason why I am applying for per-package set privileges or equivalent privileges to allow Ubuntu Budgie to maintain its packages. The list of packages are: budgie-desktop, budgie-desktop-environment, budgie-artwork, budgie-welcome, budgie-wallpapers, arc-theme, moka-icon-theme, faba-icon-theme, rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar, budgie-indicator-applet and ubuntu-budgie-meta. My prime responsibility is to maintain the current package set that makes up Ubuntu Budgie. Its for this reason why I am applying for per-package set privileges or equivalent privileges to allow Ubuntu Budgie to maintain its packages. The list of packages are: budgie-desktop, budgie-desktop-environment, budgie-artwork, budgie-welcome, budgie-wallpapers, arc-theme, moka-icon-theme, faba-icon-theme, rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar, budgie-indicator-applet, slick-greeter and ubuntu-budgie-meta.
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For the most part of for 17.10 I have been working with Bhavani Shankar (for Ubuntu) to upload changes to our packages.
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I have been pro-active when receiving bug-reports. Examples - resolving perceived new debian wide security review of the use of dbus-launch - this affected budgie-desktop. Resolving new debian wide cleanup to correctly designate debian/prerm etc files to ensure they correctly start with a shebang. I have been pro-active when receiving bug-reports. Examples - moving fast to resolve a serious issue when the Debian migration of GTK+3.22 to 3.24 did not go smoothly resulting in needing a critical fix to budgie-desktop. Resolving perceived new debian wide security review of the use of dbus-launch - this affected budgie-desktop. Resolving new debian wide cleanup to correctly designate debian/prerm etc files to ensure they correctly start with a shebang.
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I have cherry-picked upstream commits to resolve issues with moka-icon-theme that were affecting 16.10. I have cherry-picked upstream commits to resolve issues with moka-icon-theme 16.10; cherry-picked fixes for budgie-desktop leading up-to 17.04.
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I have undertaken the SRU process to push updates for budgie-desktop in 17.04. I have undertaken the SRU process to push updates for budgie-desktop as part of the 17.04 cycle.

During this application I will be again going through the SRU process to upload a patch version of budgie-welcome to ensure it works with a forthcoming webkitgtk upload to 17.04.
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Upstream has moved to meson and I've taken the opportunity to completely revamp the packaging to be consistent, lintian free as possible using the latest software standard.

I've also spent alot of time fixing and diagnosing issues for the new version to ensure a release is available for our 16.04 budgie-remix users.

Currently I am monitoring closely the upstream budgie-desktop code-stream and issues being raised to see if there are potentially any serious/critical impacts for our 17.10 release.
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Upstream, budgie-desktop is soon to be split from its current monolithic package to multiple individual packages. I will be working with Debian to ensure successful inclusion into Sid/Stretch through creating brand-new packages and ensuring a seamless upgrade process for existing users of budgie-desktop. Upstream, budgie-desktop v10.4 has been released. I've been working extensively with upstream to ensure that this new version works for both Debian Buster and Ubuntu 17.10. Next step will be the proposed QT version of budgie-desktop v11. This will involve various changes; ubiquity for Ubuntu as well as a revamped QT based packaging approach.
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== Bhavani Shankar ==
=== General feedback ===
I second all the views below, (personally as someone who has installed budgie on mid-end specs for my family), For me David is Mr. Ubuntu Budgie :)

Coming to the sponsorship perspective, I have also sponsored [[http://ubuntu-dev.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?render=htm&sponsoree=*david+moh*|several]] [[http://ubuntu-dev.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/ubuntu-sponsorships.cgi?render=htm&sponsoree=*foss*|uploads]] for David, 26 of them to be precise, all were of very high quality and most of them passed without a comment and I strongly recommend him to be given access to Ubuntu budgie package set so that the updates and the quality stuff coming with it would have a shorter turn around time :)

I, David Mohammed - also known by my nick 'fossfreedom', apply for upload rights for Ubuntu Budgie package set.

Name

David Mohammed

Launchpad Page

http://launchpad.net/~fossfreedom

Wiki Page

fossfreedom

Who I am

My name is David Mohammed, living in the UK. I have been involved in FLOSS since Ubuntu 7.04 days. I have a masters degree in Software Engineering and work as a senior systems developer for Hewlett Packard Enterprises.

My initial career developer background is primarily C based - my opensource contributions are primarily python based via rhythmbox plugins - https://github.com/fossfreedom.

I am the project lead for the new official community flavour - Ubuntu Budgie.

My prime responsibility is to maintain the current package set that makes up Ubuntu Budgie. Its for this reason why I am applying for per-package set privileges or equivalent privileges to allow Ubuntu Budgie to maintain its packages. The list of packages are: budgie-desktop, budgie-desktop-environment, budgie-artwork, budgie-welcome, budgie-wallpapers, arc-theme, moka-icon-theme, faba-icon-theme, rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar, budgie-indicator-applet, slick-greeter and ubuntu-budgie-meta.

My Ubuntu story

I first dabbled with Ubuntu during the Feisty days and Ubuntu became my primary desktop OS soon after with Gutsy.

My first active contribution to the Ubuntu community was through Ubuntu Forums (Ubuntu Cappuccino Scuro) and later through Ask Ubuntu. Currently I am a community moderator with a not insubstantial score-card (http://askubuntu.com/users/14356/fossfreedom) together with several highly regarded Q&A's

My involvement

I started software packaging through my efforts on Ask Ubuntu. Many people requested software that was not available in debian format - or was not available for the distro release they were using. Several PPA's exist - https://launchpad.net/~fossfreedom

As a result, the software packaged is pretty diverse but I've kept those packages up-to-date as long as there was a need from end-users.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Specifically I am most proud of my Rhythmbox Plugins PPA (https://launchpad.net/~fossfreedom/+archive/ubuntu/rhythmbox-plugins). I've gathered together 30+ packages over many years, updating when new releases were available - testing, revising, suggesting fixes upstream. I've also coded myself many new plugins to Rhythmbox myself. From the PPA stats, literally hundreds of thousands of downloads over the years has been made!

Areas of work

I am the project lead for Ubuntu Budgie and my prime responsibility is the package maintenance for our distro. I have worked both upstream - Debian - and with Ubuntu devs.

I have worked with Gianfranco Costamagna learning the correct Debian way of packaging through my own rhythmbox plugin 'rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar'. This was submitted to Debian.

Similarly, working with Gianfranco worked through the intricacies of the Vala based budgie-desktop - now the corner stone of Ubuntu Budgie. I've successfully submitted new upstream releases as well as many bug and stability fixes as they became available upstream.

I have worked with Adam Borowski (again with Debian) to package moka-icon-theme, faba-icon-theme and arc-theme packages.

I have worked with Jeremy Bicha (for Ubuntu) to package budgie-desktop-environment, budgie-welcome, budgie-wallpapers and budgie-artwork

For the most part of for 17.10 I have been working with Bhavani Shankar (for Ubuntu) to upload changes to our packages.

I have been pro-active when receiving bug-reports. Examples - moving fast to resolve a serious issue when the Debian migration of GTK+3.22 to 3.24 did not go smoothly resulting in needing a critical fix to budgie-desktop. Resolving perceived new debian wide security review of the use of dbus-launch - this affected budgie-desktop. Resolving new debian wide cleanup to correctly designate debian/prerm etc files to ensure they correctly start with a shebang.

I have cherry-picked upstream commits to resolve issues with moka-icon-theme 16.10; cherry-picked fixes for budgie-desktop leading up-to 17.04.

I have undertaken the SRU process to push updates for budgie-desktop as part of the 17.04 cycle.

During this application I will be again going through the SRU process to upload a patch version of budgie-welcome to ensure it works with a forthcoming webkitgtk upload to 17.04.

Also I have helped out recently with a couple of merge uploads of Tilix in Artful to bring the archive to the latest upstream version.

Upstream has moved to meson and I've taken the opportunity to completely revamp the packaging to be consistent, lintian free as possible using the latest software standard.

I've also spent alot of time fixing and diagnosing issues for the new version to ensure a release is available for our 16.04 budgie-remix users.

Currently I am monitoring closely the upstream budgie-desktop code-stream and issues being raised to see if there are potentially any serious/critical impacts for our 17.10 release.

All packages described above I have maintained to be fully upto-date as upstream release new fixes (https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=fossfreedom%40ubuntu.com)

Things I could do better

Revise my Rhythmbox PPA packages to be of much better package quality using lessons learned from working with Gianfranco, Adam, Jeremy and Daniel.

Plans for the future

My immediate plans revolve around making 17.10 another successful release for Ubuntu Budgie. This includes ensuring all packages are fully up-to-date, cherry-picking stability and critical fixes where necessary.

Planning is already taking place for 18.04 as well.

Upstream, budgie-desktop v10.4 has been released. I've been working extensively with upstream to ensure that this new version works for both Debian Buster and Ubuntu 17.10. Next step will be the proposed QT version of budgie-desktop v11. This will involve various changes; ubiquity for Ubuntu as well as a revamped QT based packaging approach.


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

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

Bhavani Shankar

General feedback

I second all the views below, (personally as someone who has installed budgie on mid-end specs for my family), For me David is Mr. Ubuntu Budgie Smile :)

Coming to the sponsorship perspective, I have also sponsored several uploads for David, 26 of them to be precise, all were of very high quality and most of them passed without a comment and I strongly recommend him to be given access to Ubuntu budgie package set so that the updates and the quality stuff coming with it would have a shorter turn around time Smile :)

Gianfranco Costamagna

General feedback

I have mostly the same experience as Adam has, I review a little bit new packages, and then I mostly just sign and upload his work. However I don't have experience with his Ubuntu contributions, this is why I prefer usually to see some work from him and then grant dm permissions (or advocate as PPU). I will appreciate him doing the Debian Maintainer process, grant him dm permissions for his packages, and see him upload them in Ubuntu too. Until that day, I'll continue sponsoring his work, in both Debian and Ubuntu (if any), because I trust him and the quality of his packages

Adam Borowski

General feedback

For the record, here's the full list of uploads to Debian that I and Gianfranco sponsored (with names mangled by #843961 manually fixed):

[~]$ who-uploads -M 10 arc-theme
Uploads for arc-theme:
20161005-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
20160923-1 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
20160605-2 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
20160605-1 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
[~]$ who-uploads -M 10 budgie-desktop
Uploads for budgie-desktop:
10.2.8-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
10.2.7-3 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
10.2.7-2 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
10.2.7-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
10.2.6-2 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
10.2.6-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
[~]$ who-uploads -M 10 faba-icon-theme
Uploads for faba-icon-theme:
4.1.2-1 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
[~]$ who-uploads -M 10 moka-icon-theme
Uploads for moka-icon-theme:
5.3.5-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
5.3.2-2 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
5.3.2-1 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
[~]$ who-uploads -M 10 rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar
Uploads for rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar:
0.17.3-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
0.17.2-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
0.17.1-1 to unstable: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl>
0.16.3-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>
0.15.0-1 to unstable: Gianfranco Costamagna <locutusofborg@debian.org>

I do closely review only the initial upload, looking mostly at debdiffs and automated tools for subsequent ones; all of your packaging was ok.

Jeremy Bicha

I have sponsored several uploads for David (it looks like 8). I highly recommend that he be granted upload rights for the Budgie set of packages. He has taken the time to personally get the core packages into Debian and maintain them there. I feel he has learned quite a bit about packaging through getting the packages sponsored into Debian and Ubuntu. His packaging is high-quality (compliant with latest Debian policy, uses short dh rules, etc.). David is clearly the developer from Ubuntu or Debian that cares the most about the Budgie desktop.

I feel that the delays of the Ubuntu sponsorship process are hurting Ubuntu Budgie. Some of the uploads took months to be reviewed in Ubuntu. (Part of that is probably due to them being new packages, but it's difficult to make high quality releases on time when you have to wait even a week or two for routine bugfix updates.)


CategoryPerPackageUploaderApplication

fossfreedom/UbuntuBudgieDevApplication (last edited 2017-09-04 13:36:47 by fossfreedom)