Core Developer application for Michael Casadevall (NCommander/sonicmctails)

[Harald Sitter]

On Mittwoch 24 Dezember 2008 02:08:56 Michael Casadevall wrote:
> I'm writing today to apply for Core Developer status in Ubuntu. Having
> continued to do work towards making Ubuntu better on the desktop and
> better as a distribution overall, I feel the time is appropriate to
> apply for core developer status. As a core developer, I can help work
> directly in the archive without interrupting other people to get
> sponsorship of packages, and I can help get others get their works
> sponsored into main.

Can just talk about the Kubuntu perspective...

Nice guy, working hard (like everyone is pulling all-nighters once in a while, 
in the Kubuntu team anyways, but he is not sleeping at all) and submitting 
patches upstream (KDE at least, not very successful though ... because he is 
not following my suggestions on how to speed up the process ;-)... but 
technically correct upstreaming via bug report and patches with sane code 
changes).

Due to lack of real sponsoring I don't really know if Michael is ready.
He was helping with KDE release packaging some time ago, not too good quality 
though. I have to mention that pretty much everyone in the team for release 
packaging had flawed changes at some point, so I don't think this is any 
indication for his core dev qualification. And since someone will ask anyway: 
yes, I think this was because he rushed it. From my point of view Michael 
likes rushing (so do I ;-)) getting things done sooner than later is certainly 
good ... but not at the cost of quality. Scott has definitely more insight on 
how good Michael tests his changes nowadays (again: that release packaging was 
least 2 months ago).

On general note: Michael works very with the Kubuntu team, and has/is 
certainly doing very good work on Kubuntu's arm porting (from what I notice on 
IRC at least), also he was helping us a lot getting the translations problems 
in 8.10 sorted.

That said, I think Michael is a very dedicted and professional developer, who 
likes porting stuff to new platforms and enjoys fixing build failures as much as 
others a cup of tea.

+ 0.5 (can't really judge the status of quality assurance)

Also, if the council decides to postpone this application, I'd like to offer 
Michael a chance to proof himself by coordinating and reviewing the KDE 4.2.1 
packaging in ~ 1 month.

regards,
Harald