Offering help / introducing myself

[Christoph Haas]

Dear fellow communists...

Everyone who is is not interested in yet another self-portrayal please
skip this posting. :) 

I am quite new to Ubuntu Linux. But considering the age of the
distribution - who isn't. Let's say I fell in love with the ease of
Ubuntu Linux after hassles with any other distribution. For the last two
years I have been a Debian addict and have been contributing to the
project. Mostly because technically it is a great distribution. Some
other aspects however often appeared not just that great to me. I
already had some contact with Ubuntu developers on IRC and found the
people very friendly and open-minded.

So who am I? I'm a 31 year old graduate living in Hamburg/Germany with
my wife and my son. I am devoting most of my spare time to open-source
software in general. Some projects that are relevant here:

- Hosting/running/developing mentors.debian.net
	(an all new developed repository system for new maintainers, presented in a
	speech at the LinuxTag 2003, gave me a lot of understanding of the package
	format and how uploading to repositories work)
- Maintaining 5 Debian packages currently (I'm living in the NM queue)
- Writing tutorials (most famous: Postfix tutorials on workaround.org)
- User support on #postfix, #squid and #debian-mentors
- Maintaining a company-wide Debian mirror
- Held Debian workshops at work

For a more complete description please see http://workaround.org/ubuntu/
(also linked from the MaintainerCandidates Wiki page).

After trying out Ubuntu Linux and following the mailing lists and IRC
channels I decided I would like to contribute. Unfortunately the project
does not offer a "Which button do I need to press if I want to help" page.
So I thought I'd just propose a few topics that I would enjoy working on
and see what you say. Please bear with me if the ideas sound mad...

- Mentors/New-Maintainer's corner

  I have some experience with the new maintainer's process in Debian
  from the new-maintainer's point of view. Some aspects of the new
  maintainer's guide have already bothered me. I even thought about
  writing an additional guide about how to build multi-binary packages
  because that's an FAQ in #debian-mentors. My experience that I gained
  in running mentors.debian.net also helped me understand the upload
  process. So this proposal either veers towards the doc project or a
  completely new corner. What about having a contribution repository for
  packages from non-maintainers so that Ubuntu developers/sponsors/mentors
  may do some QA and use the package?
  Relevant links to former mailing list postings:
  http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2004-October/000634.html
  http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2004-November/000941.html

- Server Maintenance

  For my living I'm working in the network security team at a large
  mail order business. I am maintaining a dozen Debian servers there.
  My background spans Perl, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Bind, Apache, Squid, iptables,
  Postfix and Mailman. So if anyone in the project feels they could use a
  helping hand in running the infrastructure let me know.

- Mirror

  I could possibly arrange for sponsored rack space at my local ISPs.
  My first thought was to offer additional mirrors.

- Documentation / Translation

  I like to write documentation. I have been writing larger documents in
  Docbook-XML and am quite familiar with Wikis. I could support the
  documentation team (perhaps even with developer-centric articles and
  documentation). Or I would help to improve the l10n of programs.

- Doing package maintenance

  Although I'm probably not the greatest package maintainer of the world
  I have already done a few .deb packages. I could imagine that Ubuntu
  may need distribution-specific packages. Or I would offer help as a
  mentor for new maintainers.

- Managing mailing lists

  Ubuntu still has already a few mailing lists to offer. Often enough people
  are too dumb to properly unsubscribe or need general help. If there is 
  need for mailing list admins or moderators...

- Ubuntu Magazine

  I have already seen a number of very well done FAQs/tutorials on the
  web page. What would you think of an online magazine? A mixture of
  Debian-Weekly, Slashdot and the FAQs? Like a biweekly/monthly issue on
  certain user-centric topics? Why that? Well, I'm maintaining an online
  magazine for PDAs since 1997 and liked writing. Possible headlines: "Moving
  from Debian to Ubuntu" or "Deploying Ubuntu in your company". Perhaps
  that makes users look more frequently at the web page or feel more
  "at home" if they feel they can learn new things. (On the other hand
  the web site could need some cleaning up. The Wiki is nice but some
  information is hard to find without using the 'Search' feature.)

- Web site programming

  Debian has a lot of information online on the web sites. What about
  packages.debian.org or db.debian.org in Ubuntu? I love to develop
  user interfaces. More transparency couldn't hurt. Wishes?

- QA

  As Ubuntu releases quite often there needs to be people that do QA before
  a release. I didn't find such a 'Team' on the web page. If I don't find
  errors in desktop applications my mother-in-law probably will. :)

I could go on and on. But some of you have probably already fallen
asleep. So if anyone feels that I could help the project in general or
wants my help in their team I would love to see a followup or an email.
I am employed so I could not work full-time but I'd be willing to devote
about 5-10 hours per week to the project.

Thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to comments.

Cheers
 Christoph

P.S.: On the freenode.net IRC network you may /msg me as 'ChrisH'.
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