MOTUApplication

I, Lukas 'slyon' Märdian, apply for MOTU and netplan.io PPU.

Name

Lukas Märdian

Launchpad Page

https://launchpad.net/~slyon

Wiki Page

LukasMaerdian

I am applying because:

  • I joined the Canonical Foundations team.
  • I'd like to eliminate delays in getting my work sponsored.
  • I'd like to reduce the burden on my sponsors.

Who I am

My name is Lukas Märdian, I am 30 years old and live in Germany. I was self-employed for 4 years, starting multiple companies, after studying CS at TUM in Munich and in Beijing. Did a trip around the world in 2019 and started working as a Software Engineer for Canonical in early 2020, as part of the Ubuntu Foundations team. I help maintaining the netplan.io project and work with upstream and Debian developers on package maintainance. In the past I was also heavily involved in the OpenPhoenux/OpenMoko and FreeSmartphone.org projects, as well as doing Linux kernel development and developing smart contracts for various blockchain projects.

My Ubuntu story

I was playing with different Linux distributions like Debian/SuSE/Gentoo during high school and liked the openness and flexibility they all provided to look into things and learn from. But it was Ubuntu "Dapper Drake" (in 2006) that made me stick to Linux and open source software in general. I engaged with the German Ubuntu community via the ubuntuusers.de forums, wiki and my blog at blog.slyon.de, helping with translations and Gnome themes. After I got an OpenMoko "Linux smartphone" in 2009, I started contributing to open-source software as a developer at projects like OpenEmbedded/Yocto, SHR OS/FSO or the Linux kernel. Also, I supported the Debian pkg-fso team as a co-maintainer for some of their packages and always wanted to become a DD, unfortunately I never found the time to work on this, though. I hope to make up for this by working with the MOTU community (and eventually becoming a DD as well, by working with upstream).

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

As a co-maintainer of the Netplan project, I'm also applying for netplan.io PPU. I did lots of work on this package already, including the full release of the most recent version 0.100 (incl. upstream release):

I enjoy working with upstream and as a member of the Foundations team I do lots of proposed-migration work, also on other packages from main, like: dnspython, python-httplib2, pexpect, sensible-utils, s390-tools[-signed], command-not-found, klibc, ... But those are for another time. Wink ;-)

Areas of work

Since joining Canonical I was part of the Foundations Team and worked on:

  • netplan.io (as co-maintainer), with Lukasz Zemczak, Steve Langasek

  • NetworkManager (upstream & snap), with Heather Ellsworth, Alfonso Sanchez-Beato

  • converged networking (with Open vSwitch, MAAS, cloud-init), with James Page, Bjorn Tillenius, Ryan Harper

  • WiFi improvements (iwd / wpa_supplicant), with Dimitri Ledkov

  • some s390x issues, with Frank Heimes, Dimitri Ledkov
  • proposed-migration/Distro, with Steve Langasek, Christian Ehrhardt, Dimitri Ledkov
  • apport, with Brian Murray
  • ubuntu-release-upgrader, with Brian Murray

Things I could do better

There always are and will be new things to learn, especially about the Debian / Ubuntu development tools and scripts. I'm currently barely scratching the surface of all the tools available... I think I could improve my efficiency quite a bit once I got to to know more of them and learned how to use them in my daily work. Also, I could improve my bug triage frequency, especially for the netplan project, I guess.

Plans for the future

General

I'm a big fan of blockchain technologies and would like to help improving the availability and quality of blockchain software available in Ubuntu, maybe in cooperation with Debian's Cryptocoin team. Also, I would like to support the many core-devs of the Foundations team with their +1 Maintenance, which would be much easier/more efficient having (some) upload rights and the ability to re-trigger autopkgtests.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Being a new contributor to Ubuntu, I found it very tedious to get fixes uploaded into the archive, as the sponsoring queue isn't really working that well and there are often big delays. The same applies to the SRU process, IMHO. Both should be improved.

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.

Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak

General feedback

Lukas is our newest addition to the Ubuntu Foundations team, taking ownership of the netplan project and helping out with general distro work. Even though still quite 'fresh' in the Ubuntu world, Lukas has demonstrated tremendous learning ability and craving for knowledge. Most of the uploads I have sponsored for him are netplan.io related, but since the moment he joined our team he was very active in not only this particular project but in Ubuntu in general. Lukas always puts a high emphasis on quality, testing as much as possible before upload and doesn't hesitate to ask if in doubt.

Lukas already has quite the experience dealing with Ubuntu, having worked on FTBFS fixes (after archive rebuilds), MIR preparation, SRU paperwork, autopkgtest failure investigations. Personally I see Lukas as a solid core-dev material, with MOTU membership only as means to get even more archive exposure before ultimately getting keys to main. I definitely trust in his skills and good judgement.

I therefore fully endorse his MOTU application.

Specific Experiences of working together

Please add good examples of your work together, but also cases that could have handled better.

As mentioned, most of my sponsorship for Lukas was related to the netplan project, but I had a few occasions to review his SRU work as well. He is exceptionally pleasant to work with, quickly reacting to any received feedback. So far I did not have any experiences with Lukas in which he could have been done anything better.

Christian Ehrhardt

General feedback

I did - so far - only sponsor two of his packages, which might not be enough for proper statistically valid data - but I can share my experience when working with him on that. What I've seen was absolutely fine on the technical as well as on the personal/communication side of things.

I'm supporting his request for MOTU rights as we will be able to do more for Ubuntu with less turnaround time.

He is also keen on learning the best-practices, tools an processes other people and Team use which IMHO is a great evidence that he is are willing to grow and that he will eventually fit very well into Ubuntu (waiting for is core-dev application after his track record has grown!).

Specific Experiences of working together

So far - as mentioned above- I only sponsored a FTFBS and a Merge.

Areas of Improvement

So far all I've seen was fine, so I guess he should just continue working on packages and issues - MOTO will help doing that. Along the way he and his peers will then identify areas to further grow. But for now the next step clearly is just to ramp up the numbers of such engagements.

-- paelzer 2020-11-16 09:22:56

Balint Reczey

General feedback

I can just second Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak's positive opinion as we work with Lukas in the same setting. While I've sponsored only a few packages for him yet I trust him to continue the high quality rigorous work that he already showed. The MOTU role will be perfect for him to get familiar with a wide range of packaging techniques while still working with sponsors in main.

Specific Experiences of working together

Areas of Improvement

Getting familiar with a broader part of the archive.

xnox

General feedback

Lukas has worked on packages in main & universe. He has contributed to the efforts of fixing archive rebuild FTBFS, proposed-migration fixing, fixing autopkgtests, working on transitions, uploading SRUs, worked with packages that use Launchpad's signing service. It would be useful for him to be a MOTU to be able to directly upload fixes for peripheral packages. Or even like server packageset that would cover a few more things that he regularly needs sponsorhip for. In addition to MOTU, it would be helpful to grant netplan.io/network-manager PPU rights.

Specific Experiences of working together

Areas of Improvement

There are lots of things still to learn. For example, on the road to core-dev it would be nice for Lukas to get his dips into packaging NEW things from scratch, going through NEW, performing seed management, filing RM bug reports, getting exposure to live-build/livecd-rootfs/ubuntu-image. More experience with packages that vendorize each-other would be useful too. Especially if that is done indirectly (i.e. ubiquity, snaps, image streams).

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 ===

CategoryMOTUApplication

slyon/MOTUApplication (last edited 2020-11-19 13:58:32 by slyon)