I, Mackenzie Morgan, apply for MOTU.

Who I am

I am a computer science student with an interest in languages and security living in Washington, DC. I'm one year from graduating, and then I'll probably be back in again for graduate studies in computational linguistics. I'm studying Japanese on the side again, since I'm quite a bit too out of practice to work on translations at this point.

My Ubuntu story

When I first started getting involved with Ubuntu, it was alpha testing (Feisty) and submitting a few Japanese translations since I didn't know any C yet. I started learning to package some time in 2007 and started submitting patches of my own and doing lots of triaging in 2008. Eventually I learned to make debdiffs (yeah, that wasn't the first thing I learned about packaging, go figure!) and started trying to convert patches on Launchpad into debdiffs so they'd be more likely to get sponsors' attention.

My involvement

I've been taking care of the spim package in Multiverse for Jaunty and Karmic. It had previously been removed from upstream Debian due to being unmaintained. After discovering a rather bad bug in 7.4, I held off on submitting it to Debian. 7.5 is waiting on sponsorship for Unstable now. I learned to add new files to packages to fix the lack of .desktop and icon for the version in Karmic.

With the Papercuts project in Karmic, I made a half dozen or so patches for Kubuntu. Jonathan Riddell merged them into the Kubuntu Members branch (then told me to join that team and stop bugging him to do it).

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

http://launchpad.net/~maco.m/+related-software

• spim package

• Patch for LP #25896 Sound inaudible after resume from suspend/hibernate

• Patch for LP #345727 Seahorse-agent writing blank ~/.gnupg/config

Areas of work

I've been trying to focus on converting patches that are languishing on Launchpad into usable debdiffs to make it faster and easier for sponsors to upload them. Would be faster if I could upload them though

Alternatively, if a bug is fairly trivial but just needs someone to sit down and fix it, I'll sometimes grab it.

Things I could do better

Remember to always use a patch management system so patches don't get lost during merges/syncs.

Plans for the future

General

Keep chugging away at getting patches out to users more efficiently.

What I like least in Ubuntu

Mixing GNOME and KDE packages can have interesting results. I use KDE but know a bit of GNOME programming, so I'd like to help make the two play nice together a little better.

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

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

JordanMantha

General feedback

I've known Maco for quite a while. She is one of the most energetic and fun-loving Ubuntu contributors I've seen in quite some time. I first worked with her on LP #215729. She is a fast learner and knows the boundaries of her knowledge. She's not afraid to ask questions, which I really appreciate in a MOTU candidate. I highly recommend her for MOTU and know that she will contribute a lot to the team.

Specific Experiences of working together

For LP #215729 Maco really drove the process. She saw a bug, worked out a patch, found a sponsor, and followed through pretty well. Certainly for a new contributor I was impressed.

Areas of Improvement

I think probably Maco could trust herself a little bit more. Sometimes she asks questions even when she pretty much knows the answer. Additionally, she should remember to check out the breadth of packaging practices and not necessarily rely on one way of doing things.

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 ===

CategoryMOTUApplication