I, Julien Lavergne, apply for MOTU.

Who I am

I am 25 years old. I lives in France. I works as an accountant for a company, not really on the IT market. All my work on IT is done on my spare-time, after the work.

My Ubuntu story

I started with Hoary as a simple user, searching a Linux distribution easy to use. Well, it's more the look and the wallpaper which convince me first.

I was primary a user and since Dapper unstable release, an adventurous tester, building some programs to test/crash them. My first compiled was compiz, and I keep the interest for eyes-candies and goodies.

With Edgy, I began to report bugs. With no knowledge on coding or packaging, my help was quite limited. I first good experience was testing/patching/building synaptic to fix a segfault.

Next step was to try to create debian package. I also begin to work also on Debian. My first upload on Ubuntu was avant-window-navigator, a new package. I am now part of the upstream team.

Now, I have severals packages maintained on Debian, and some packages that I try to keep as clean as possible on Ubuntu (see below). I also try to help during some French Ubuntu Parties.

My involvement

• Keep my packages on Debian and Ubuntu in sync and as clean as possible, including bug triaging, patches, and uploads :
  • avant-window-navigator and awn-extras-applets (+ I am part of the upstream team)
  • screenlets (no upstream activity, many patches)
  • moap
  • desktop-data-model
  • gnome-launch-box
  • nautilus-image-converter (newly adopted)
• Keep an eye on others packages on Ubuntu :
  • cairo-dock, another dock-like (New upload with REVU, and some updates)
  • conduit (some bug triages and bugfix uploads)
  • ogmrip and related packages (mkvtoolnix, gpac)
• Some "QA" activities, like updated packages with not many activity (penguinTV, phat). Recently, I also tried to re-sync with Debian as many packages as I can for Karmic, forwarded some changes to Debian to avoid a merge.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

Some examples of my works :

• Maintaining avant-window-navigator and awn-extras-applets.

  • Bug triaging (247 opens, 38 still open for Awn, 160/36 for Awn-extras, with help of upstream)

  • Sync or Update

  • Upload patches

• Sync for karmic : average of 40s packages to re-sync with Debian.

Areas of work

• Bug triage
• Patches (C and Python)
• Forwarding patches/changes
• Merges/Syncs
• New packages.

Things I could do better

• Improve my knowledge about packaging other than python and C + autotools
• Search more on other distributions fixes/improvements (like patches)
• Improve my communication and my English.

Plans for the future

General

I have 2 goals for the future :

• Continue to work on my preferred packages.
• Continue QA activity:
  • Try to work better with Debian by reducing the merges, forwarding changes etc ...
  • Try to to add patches from downstream distribution or users (I was amazed by the numbers of bugs with attached patches on Launchpad).

To be general, I would like to add as mush as possible works done by people around Ubuntu development (Debian, upstream, downstream, users ...).

What I like least in Ubuntu

I think Ubuntu have a very big potential, but it's not fully exploited. Debian make a very good job and I think being in sync with them for most of the packages is important. Also, I am sure downstream distribution have opportunities to offer (like patches, or idea to improve packages). There is also some patches posted directly by the users which can improve the state of some packages. And of course, upstream is the most important part. I think Ubuntu can improve in this areas, and I'll try to help to improve this aspect (see my Plans for the future).

Comments

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Endorsements

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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 ===

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