I, Chase Douglas, apply for core developer membership.

Who I am

I am a member of the Ubuntu uTouch Team, employed by Canonical. My current activities include development of the uTouch gesture stack both as an upstream and as a downstream packager for Ubuntu, and development in the Linux kernel and X.org window system for multitouch. I am helping develop the XInput 2.1 multitouch extension which will allow for full multitouch support through X.

I previously was a member of the Ubuntu Kernel Team. In that role, my activities included bug fixes for the Ubuntu kernels, a few upstream kernel fixes and improvements, and support for firmware in Ubuntu.

I also wrote and maintain the rinputd package as the upstream source and debian package maintainer.

My Ubuntu story

I ran Gentoo for quite a while, and it helped me learn all about GNU/Linux. After a while, I started to use it on my MythTV server as well as my desktops, but I found that I was spending too much time administering it. I moved my server to Ubuntu first, then moved my laptops to Ubuntu, and I've found it to be perfect for what I need. Once I arrived on the Ubuntu Kernel Team, I found myself to be enthralled by the challenge of making the Ubuntu releases work as well as possible. It enthuses me greatly to know that I contribute to helping people enjoy using their computers.

My involvement

I currently work on anything multitouch related. The biggest item so far has been developing the XInput 2.1 multitouch extension to allow for full multitouch through the X.org window system. As part of this role, I have coordinated with the Ubuntu-X team to package and publish the XInput 2.1 work. I also help develop and maintain the uTouch gesture stack in Ubuntu.

Previous to the multitouch work, my main areas of work on Ubuntu had been on the kernel directly. Outside of the core kernel source code, I fixed a few bugs up the stack into X and gnome, and I have worked on making power management better through the pm-utils package.

I have participated in directing the Ubuntu project in regards to input handling and display manager systems. I plan to continue leading Ubuntu in these realms.

I have prepared numerous uploads for various packages throughout the Ubuntu distribution. I have also created new packages for new upstream projects. I was taught the Ubuntu development process by Didier Roche. I have published a package in Debian and sync'd packages to Ubuntu.

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

• Pre-release XInput 2.1 multitouch support in Ubuntu Natty
• Helped develop the uTouch gesture stack
• Reverse engineered and developed driver for the Apple Magic Trackpad
• Found and fixed many kernel bugs
• An ability to traverse the entire stack from kernel to plumbing layer to applications to find and resolve bugs
• Resolving particularly daunting bugs, examples:
  • A pthread malloc mutex bug in uClibc on MIPS
  • A kernel scheduler bug keeping the loadavg artificially low

Areas of work

Primarily anything relating to multitouch and other input. Secondarily, I focus on fixing bugs that I notice.

Things I could do better

I am still refining my packaging skills. I believe I am a competent packager, but I will need help reviewing special packages, such as for Python projects.

Plans for the future

General

I plan on continuing to support multitouch in Ubuntu. This will include work upstream on X.org and potentially Wayland, and work to get the changes into Ubuntu.

I also plan to help sponsor packages for Ubuntu related to multitouch. New upstream multitouch projects are requesting packaging frequently, and I want to help them land in Ubuntu.

What I like least in Ubuntu

That I still can't use my Magic Mouse fully!

Comments

If you'd like to comment, but are not the applicant or a sponsor, do it here. Don't forget to sign with @SIG@.

Endorsements

Bryce Harrington

General feedback

I've sponsored bunches of uploads of multitouch/xorg packages from Chase, and am happy to give a completely unqualified recommendation for him to gain upload rights for uTouch. I trust his packaging work to be good.

Chase has a depth of understanding throughout the Input stack from kernel, through X, to applications that fills a huge need in Ubuntu. He also has a breadth of experience from low level kernel development, to hacking on X, to userspace library and application development, and to packaging. He seems to be a swiss army knife of skills when it comes to solving Input problems!

Specific Experiences of working together

Most of the uploads I've sponsored for Chase have been items in the X stack including xserver, -evdev, and other touch-related items. He has been remarkably proactive at following up with me to see if any issues arose, and if/when bugs did turn up he has been very quick to turn around fixes. When he has been uncertain about an aspect of packaging, such as determining correct version number formatting for SRU'd things, he asks questions first to make sure it is correct.

Areas of Improvement

I don't have any concerns about areas needing improvement.

My one suggestion is that Ubuntu needs Chase as a MOTU/CoreDev so the distro can benefit from his work that much quicker, and so I would encourage him to use uTouch rights as a stepping stone and continue on towards gaining full upload rights. I have a feeling he's already more than qualified for gaining MOTU rights today, and would give a solid endorsement. Based on his breadth of work across kernel, xorg, and apps I think he has sufficient packaging experience and demonstrated trustworthiness for CoreDev as well.

As a sponsor, just copy the template below, fill it out and add it to this section.

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 ===

CategoryPerPackageUploaderApplication