Hello MOTU Council, <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Michael Casadevall <<a href="mailto:sonicmctails@gmail.com">sonicmctails@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> To the MOTU council: Wiki Page: <a href="http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MichaelCasadevall" target="_blank">http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MichaelCasadevall</a> LP Profile: <a href="http://launchpad.net/%7Esonicmctails" target="_blank">http://launchpad.net/~sonicmctails</a> Primary Sponsors: Scott Kitterman, Steven Kowailk, Sebastien Bacher, Jon Riddell, John Dong (Backports),  Luca Falavigna (SRU/MOTU) Primary Team Memberships: Xubuntu (Developer), Kubuntu (Developer), Backports (Tester), SRU (PowerPC tester), Ports (PowerPC) I'm writing today apply for MOTU status in Ubuntu. I've been highly active during the intrepid release cycle, working to help resolve and fix many bugs, as well as build stronger ties with Debian by merging patches from Ubuntu when appropriate. I have been urged by my sponsors to apply for some time, and finally worked up the nerve to face the possibility of rejection</blockquote><div> As I said when he applied for Universe Contributor Status, Michael has been intrinsically valuable to the Xubuntu team having the ability to perform a wide variety of assignments and handle ambiguity and challenge with a "can do" attitude. Since becoming a Universe Contributor, I've continued to work closely with Michael on the Xubuntu project and am happy to report evidence of growth both as an individual developer and a team player.  I believe the reason that Michael has waited until now to apply for MOTU is because I have strongly advised him against doing so. I have felt at times that Michael's impressive pace of contribution sees Michael sometimes forget to take due diligence in testing and understanding the changes he is making resulting in unintended consequences, trivial mistakes, and/or incomplete solutions. When bringing forth these issues to Michael, he is very cooperative and often immediately understands what he did wrong and how to fix it. Based on these experiences, it is clear to me that Michael possesses the aptitude and skills necessary to understand complex problems and engineer appropriate solutions but lacks an attitude that is conducive to minimizing mistakes and misunderstandings. After one particular string of silly mistakes, I sat down with Michael and discussed this issue with him. Michael promised me that he would always test his changes from that point forward. Since then, I feel Michael has a better understanding and appreciation for the entire process that all developers should move through when making changes.  <snip> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Following this, I helped work on packaging Xfce 4.5.80 for Ubuntu, which helped earn me Xubuntu Developer status; I continue to work on merging Xfce beta packages from Debian, and have worked to reduce our diffs from Debian greatly (pkg-xfce and Xubuntu now have an excellent working relationship, and our diffs are now down to simply Xubuntu specific changes, with all our bugfixes mutually shared). This work has inspired me to work to help reduce the diffs in general by submitting them back to Debian, and NMUing packages in cases where it is needed so that the general workload of having to merge packages is reduced.</blockquote><div> It should be noted that Michael is the official Xubuntu to Debian liaison.   </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Second is codeblocks. This is a new package upload, and was a rather longstanding needs-packaging bug. It had a large list of dependencies, a few previous attempts, and a very difficult problem in that the package can not be forced via configure to comply with Linux FHS, forcing the authoring of patches to resolve this behavior. I feel quite proud I managed to bring this to intrepid, and I hope I can bring it to hardy via backports relatively soon as well.</blockquote><div> I sponsored the work on codeblocks. Infact, this is how I actually met Michael. I was very happy with the work Michael did on this. <snip> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I also would like to greatly work towards removing cruft from the archive, such as gtk1.2, and improving both Xfce and KDE. One of my largest projects in terms of general usability with Xubuntu and Xfce specifically is making Xfce fully syncable from Debian with the expection of the few Ubuntu specific patches, as well as helping any bug</blockquote><div> To conclude, I'd like endorse Michael's application to become MOTU with the stipulation that Michael reconfirms that he'll take due diligence in slowing down to appropriately test and verify his changes. He possesses the aptitude, skills, and working understanding of Ubuntu processes required to be a MOTU and is already regarded as an asset to a number of teams within Ubuntu. I intend to continue to work with Michael to help him reach his full potential and develop a mindset and attitude that would enable him to one day lead the Xubuntu project. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> With great regards, Michael Casadevall -- Motu-council mailing list <a href="mailto:Motu-council@lists.ubuntu.com">Motu-council@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/motu-council" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/motu-council</a> </blockquote></div> Cheers, -- Cody A.W. Somerville Software Systems Release Engineer Custom Engineering Solutions Group Canonical OEM Services Cell: 506-449-5899 Email: <a href="mailto:cody.somerville@canonical.com">cody.somerville@canonical.com</a>