MOTU Application for Stefan Ebner (sebner)

Harald Sitter sitter.harald at gmail.com
Mon Nov 10 21:46:10 GMT 2008


On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 9:11 PM, Stefan Ebner <sebner at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Consider this as my official MOTU Application.

Since I mostly was acting as answer-bot I had to conduct some research
on the actual work of Stefan.
For the stats:
* worked on around 240 sync requests
* worked on around 60 merges
Both not too easy to filter so I would go with a tolerance of +/-50 :)
* produced 2 packages (both debhelper-only and both not very easy, I
am pretty sure he learned a good deal about packaging)

> I think I learned from the mistakes I made and I won't upload anything
> a) without testbuilding and b) without being sure
> that everything is OK. (Then of course I would ask another MOTU for a
> review).

You listed 2 FTBFS examples in an answer to one of Scott's questions,
I am quite sure you'll take testbuilding more serious as MOTU, most
people I talked to aggreed that being a MOTU raises awareness of such
things.
Considering this I'd like to hear your thoughts on the following bug,
since it affects runtime rather than buildtime:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nfdump/+bug/268811
Please describe the impact of this issue, how you fixed it and what
you learned from it.

> Often the MOTU-Council asks what are the goals for the future so here
> are mine:
>
> * Of course I will join u-u-s:
>  Somehow it's already "normal" for new MOTU's to join u-u-s but it
>  should more be like an honour. I mean, a lot people who use Ubuntu
>  want to give something back so they start translating,.. or with MOTU
>  stuff. So, without this mighty guys from u-u-s we (including me) wouldn't be
>  able to contribute. Besides, I also want to join u-u-s for another reason.
>  I pretty often spammed u-u-s so I'll make up for it.

A lot of sponsoring requests don't involve merges or syncs, which is
clearly where your level of experience is located. General packaging
skills are very important for most sponsoring tasks and MOTU work in
general. I know that you learned a lot with the 2 packages you did
from scratch, but since this experience was quite some time ago I'd
like you to review a package (which something you might want to do at
some point).
A fellow Kubuntu developer was kind enough to provide a package with
common issues for you.
The Scenario looks like this: JontheEchidna (Jonathan Thomas) is
completely new to Debian/Ubuntu development, joins #ubuntu-motu and
asks for a review. Because no one else is around and he seems like a
nice guy you head over to REVU to take a look at the package.
http://revu.ubuntuwire.com/details.py?package=plasmoid-panelspacer
The target is, as always, to catch as many issues as possible to get
the package in releasable shape.

Please keep in mind that this is not about finding all issues, from
what I have seen it is certainly possible to find  them all even
without knowledge of KDE/CMake. Please treat this scenario exactly
like you would as MOTU, with the same caution and devotion.

Since I also had to do an exercise recently take this final word of
advise: don't rush it! quality > speed

Regards,
Harald



More information about the Motu-council mailing list