CoreDeveloperApplication

I, Stéphane Graber, apply for core-dev.

Name

Stéphane Graber

Launchpad Page

http://launchpad.net/~stgraber

Wiki Page

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/stgraber

Who I am

I'm Stéphane Graber, currently living in Canada and working for Revolution Linux as LTSP developer and liaison with the Ubuntu community. I develop and maintain LTSP and LTSP-Cluster for Revolution Linux, the first being already in main, the second being packaged at the moment. I also maintain iTalc which we use for classroom management on LTSP networks and help when possible the edubuntu project so we have a good set of educational softwares available in Ubuntu.

My Ubuntu story

I started using Linux 9 years ago switching from a distro to another for a few years, then using Debian most of the time before switching to Ubuntu with Warty. I first contributed by doing testing/bug reporting mainly on LTSP and Edubuntu around Edgy's release then contributed mainly in the QA team by working on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker. After UDS-Boston I started to maintain iTalc, got more involved in community activities (EMEA council, loco team leader, ...) and finally started maintaining LTSP and all its components. At UDS-Karmic I was voted as an Edubuntu council member and worked on the Edubuntu Strategy document to get that project active again.

I attended UDSes: Boston, Prague (Fosscamp only), Mountain View and Barcelona

My involvement

  • Current maintainer of ltsp/ltspfs/ldm/italc in Main
  • MOTU
  • Administrator of the Ubuntu QA team
  • Main developer of the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker
  • Member of the EMEA membership approval board
  • Edubuntu council member
  • Upstream for: Mirrorkit, pastebinit, LTSP and LTSP-cluster

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

  • LTSP and its components in Intrepid, Jaunty and Karmic
  • iTalc and its launcher scripts since Hardy
  • Bug triaging and fixing for LTSP, iTalc and some other packages
  • Xorg testing and bug fixing (libxcb recently) on thin client hardware

Things I could do better

  • Improve the community around LTSP in Ubuntu (testing, bug reporting, documentation, ...)
  • Work on doing some SRUs for LTSP and iTalc or at least mentor someone to do it

Plans for the future

General

  • Taking a more important part in Edubuntu's development (packaging and release management)
  • Get LTSP's experience to be as similar to the regular desktop one as possible
  • Improving LTSP's integration in the Ubuntu desktop and the services it's using
  • Work on getting a SRU process for LTSP (and finding people willing to help cherry-picking fixes)
  • Getting more involved with the Server team for LTSP, Desktop in the cloud (very similar to what I do for ltsp-cluster) and bug fixing / sponsoring

What I like least in Ubuntu

Some process being unclear for newcomers and therefore giving them the feeling of being ignore from the project by not receiving enough attention.


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@.

  • I've known Stéphane for some time on IRC and met him for the first time at UDS Karmic in Barcelona last month. I've found him to be very stable, honest and energetic and he is a pleasure to work with both technically and socially. Stéphane sets a great example for the rest of the community, and I can only aspire to be as good a package maintainer as he is one day. Stéphane is also actively involved in the Edubuntu project, where an additional core-dev (in addition to JordanMantha) would be extremely beneficial to the project. @JonathanCarter@


Endorsements

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

Jordan Mantha (LaserJock)

General feedback

I've sponsored a number of packages for Stéphane going back to when he started developing pastebinit and wanted to learn packaging so he could get it into Universe back in Feisty. He picked up packaging very quickly from the start and has always been very professional. I've also worked with Stéphane on the Ubuntu QA team where he has show great leadership and technical knowledge in his work on the ISO tracker and qa.ubuntu.com site. IMO, he is ready and able to be an Ubuntu Core Developer and would be a great help to the Edubuntu and Ubuntu teams. As the Edubuntu community is attempting to revitalize development, Stéphane will play a key role in sponsoring contributions, managing seeds, and developing a stronger developer community.

Specific Experiences of working together

My first technical experience with Stéphane was when I reviewed and sponsored his pastebinit package. It was honestly one of the easiest package reviews I've ever done. Stéphane does a lot of groundwork before coming to a sponsor and is very prepared. I never felt like I needed to do any hand-holding.

A more recent experience has been doing some sponsoring of LTSP related packages before he got his package-specific uploading rights. I never once had to request a change. He has also shown himself to be a dedicated, reliable, and helpful package maintainer. Since I've been overseeing Edubuntu and have watched not only his uploads but also his bug work I can confidently say that he is a top-notch package maintainer.

Areas of Improvement

Not much that I can think of other than maybe branching outside of LTSP some more, which I'm confident he'll do if he's given full Core Dev upload permissions.

OliverGrawert (ogra)

Stéphane maintains the LTSP, ltspfs and LDM packages in Ubuntus main component since the Intrepid release. We started off by me sponsoring his uploads pre-Intrepid and i had not a single concern with his packaging work during this sponsoring phase (actually his packaging was so convincing that i suggested him as restricted main uploader for the whole set of LTSP very soon for which he got approval by the TB). He also always maintained the classroom management software for teachers we use by default in Ubuntu (ItalC) and had me sponsoring it for a while before he got upload access. Over time Stéphane took more and more duties in the edubuntu community which has most of its packages in main (and on which much of the canonical "Ubuntu in Education" project relies). If we want edubuntu (especially its applications) to survive in the supported areas of Ubuntu as an excellent choice for educational institutions, people like Stéphane need to have upload access to the relevant parts of the distro to keep up their good maintenance work without having a bottleneck at the uploading stage. Stéphane going for that task and expressing interest in helping with maintenance here is a big win for us and i thank him that he offers to put more of his quality work into ubuntu, he has my full support without stint.


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 ===


CategoryCoreDevApplication

stgraber/CoreDeveloperApplication (last edited 2009-06-16 03:46:34 by modemcable078)