I, Simon Quigley, apply to be a Developer in the Kubuntu project.

Who I am

I'm a 15 year old living in Wisconsin, USA who likes Linux, Ubuntu, and technology in general. I have had a passion for computers ever since I was 9, starting out by learning some basic HTML on a Windows XP machine, growing my knowledge and passion from there.

My Kubuntu story

I installed Ubuntu in February of 2015 after breaking my Windows 7 install, and was instantly attracted to the development side of the project. I wanted to work with others to develop software, which was always something I wished I could do but didn't have any interested friends. But, after reading the Ubuntu Packaging Guide, I was stuck, some steps didn't work, and that discouraged me. So I gave up.

I then joined a Lubuntu IRC channel that July after finding out Lubuntu ran better on my computer. I joined that community, started working on other projects within Ubuntu such as the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, and I worked to get Ubuntu Membership on February 4th, 2016. But I still wanted to contribute to development, so that summer, I joined a Kubuntu Party and got involved in the Kubuntu project as a ninja.

From then on, I expanded my contributions, becoming the Lubuntu Release Manager, helping run the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, and a few other contributions listed on my main page. I continue to do various tasks within the community as a contributor outside of my Kubuntu work.

I became a MOTU on August 28, 2017, and have been an active Ubuntu Developer in the archive since then, helping coordinate and/or generally contribute to nodejs transitions, Qt transitions, haskell transitions, and more.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

In coordination with the Security Team, I have released security patches for several important/highly-used packages and continue to do so whenever there is a new CVE affecting a package in the Kubuntu packageset.

I staged KDE Plasma 5.11.4, uploaded to the archive, and got it to migrate with very little help from others.

I have to admit, it's a bit hard to find things to list here because I take pride in the work I do; so if you have any specific questions about my work, don't hesitate to ask.

Areas of work

• Making sure the Kubuntu Continuous Integration has passing jobs when I can help out.
• Staging releases of KDE Plasma, KDE Frameworks, and KDE Applications to the relevant staging PPAs and pushing out updates to the Kubuntu Backports PPA.
• Help Kubuntu transitions migrate from devel-proposed to devel-release.
• Continuing to keep Kubuntu secure and bug-free by releasing updates to packages containing bugfixes and security fixes.
• Helping package Qt to make sure Kubuntu stays up-to-date and bug-free.

Plans for the future

General

• Continue to contribute with Qt packaging, and contribute more in the Debian team.
• Upstream more Kubuntu deltas to Debian where I can.
• Continue to get security patches to users in a very timely manner.
• Help organize stagings alongside the team.

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 been working with and getting to know Simon for the past couple of years, and am impressed by how much he's matured and learned. He's been willing to tackle the "scut" jobs nobody else wanted to take on, to work out difficult issues like symbols, and has begun to train others to package as well. I hope he can continue on this trajectory, and learn to work professionally even with those people whom he does not like, which is necessary in small teams like Kubuntu sometimes. He's been working hard on his own time-management and overall organizational issues, which are really valuable to the Kubuntu project. I don't have a vote, but am happy to see Simon apply for Kubuntu Developer. -- valorie-zimmerman 2017-12-07 23:02:20

Endorsements

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

Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)

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I know Simon for his work on Qt packages. He has been helping with the past
transitions (5.9 and 5.9.2) and he is now handling 5.9.3 mostly on his own.

I also sponsored a few other uploads for him:

* http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/zesty/+source/freehdl/0.0.8-2.2ubuntu2/
* http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/zesty/+source/lxterminal/0.3.0-1ubuntu0.2/
* http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/artful/+source/civicrm/4.7.20+dfsg-1ubuntu1/

He has been also coordinating his work with us the Debian Qt/KDE team,
and helping to reduce the delta between Debian and Ubuntu.

While I am not formally a Kubuntu developer myself, I fully recommend him
for that role.
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Gianfranco Costamagna (LocutusOfBorg)

I worked and I'm working with Simon in various Qt packages.
He is doing a good job in trying to keep them in a releasable state, helping with
transitions, and as already said, doing the 5.9.3 one mostly alone in silo.

I'm not a Kubuntu developer either, but I really like his work, and the way he is
driving it, as a recent MOTU, and a Kubuntu user.

Please let him upload packages by his own, he knows the stuff better than I do.

Rik Mills

General feedback

I have worked with Simon since he popped up in a Kubuntu podcast/meeting enthusing about snaps, and even then he showed great technical potential. I have no doubt he has the skills, or the ability to gain them, to bring much to being a Kubuntu Developer.

Specific Experiences of working together

We have worked together in many cases, including: - Staging releases of Plasma and KDE Frameworks - in some cases assisting other Ninjas in that process - Fixing issues with builds on the Kubuntu CI - Bug reports and security fixes - though the latter has mostly been assisting on testing the ones Simon did on his path to MOTU - Troubleshooting issues with recent Qt releases to the archive

Areas of Improvement

In general I would say Simon's Technical competence is good, but this could be enhanced by: - Better attention to detail (e.g. a quick result is not always the best) - More familiarity with the Kubuntu tools/workflow - Simply because he is doing so much other stuff, he perhaps needs to spend more time working with these. - Being more discriminating on that tasks he volunteers to take on given that he has limited time while at school. Sometimes Simon can (through enthusiasm) seem to take on too many things at once. However, in general, any areas I can think of are ones where time and experience will no doubt bring improvement.

-- rikmills 2017-12-29 10:36:14

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 ===