Report for new developer applicant Nikita V. Youshchenko:
0. Recommendation
-----------------
I recommend to accept Nikita V. Youshchenko as new Developer of the Debian
Project for free Software.
1. Identification & Background
------------------------------
Check with Keyid 0xC9132DDB
ID Check passed, Key signed by at least one existing Debian Developer:
pub 1024D/C9132DDB 2004-09-15 Nikita V. Youshchenko <yoush@cs.msu.su>
Key fingerprint = 19A5 0310 44F2 74AA 1676 1CFD BF7C 793A C913 2DDB
sig!3 9469A7A7 2004-10-05 Peter Novodvorsky <nidd@myxomop.com>
sig!3 C9132DDB 2004-09-15 Nikita V. Youshchenko <yoush@cs.msu.su>
uid Nikita Youshchenko <yoush@cs.msu.su>
sig!3 9469A7A7 2004-10-05 Peter Novodvorsky <nidd@myxomop.com>
sig!3 C9132DDB 2004-09-15 Nikita V. Youshchenko <yoush@cs.msu.su>
sub 4096g/3D0AE933 2004-09-15
sig! C9132DDB 2004-09-15 Nikita V. Youshchenko <yoush@cs.msu.su>
His key is signed by non-Debian keys that are part of the web of trust.
Applicant writes:
--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---
I use Linux since early 1996. At that time I was a student and had plenty
of free time to learn the system. At first I had Slackware 3.x installed,
then I started to download almost every piece of software for Linux that I
could find. I had free Internet access at university, so I downloaded up
to several dozens megabytes daily, and copied everything to my home
machine using floppies, then built it and installed it. That was a nice
game, and it helped me to learn very well how everything works.
Of course my installation that suffered from all those experiments was a
complete mess, now I wonder how it worked at all :). One day I got tired
of that, and decided to install from scratch a "modern" distribution that
has working package management. The choice was between RedHat 4.x and
Debian 2.0 pre-release. At that moment I didn't know much about any of
those distributions, and chose Debian only because of it's .orig.tar.gz +
diff.gz source package format. I hoped this will help me to still rebuild
everything I wish while minimizing downloads, because I thougth there is
no need to get .orig.tar.gz each time, using upstream patches instead.
(Later I found that it is not always possible, but is not really
needed :) ).
So I installed Debian 2.0 pre-release. That was the only installation of
Debain on my home computer - hardware changed several times, and system
was upgraded many times, but never reinstalled. I don't think this is
possible in any distribution other than Debain. Currently I mostly run
sarge, with several packages from sid.
Currently I am a system administrator and software engeneer (and a sort of
Linux guru) at Computer Systems Lab, Computer Science department of Moscow
State University. I'm running a network of Debian machines, and most of
our software projects are also for Linux.
I'm trying to be a member of free software community, and always try to
report bugs that I find and provide patches if I can. In Debian BTS you
may find several dozens of bugs reported by me, many comments on other
bugs, and some patches of course.
Last winter I bought and Ipaq handheld, and installed Linux there. While
setting up cross-compilation environment, I was disapponted with the state
of cross-compilation in Debain, and did some work to improve it.
Currently I am de-facto maintainer of dpkg-cross package (I had to rewrite
most of it to make it work). Dpkg-cross CVS repository is at alioth, I put
my code (as well as code by other people that I review) to CVS, and
official dpkg-cross maintainer (David Schleef <ds@debian.org>) uploads it.
I send all cross-gcc related patches to Matthias Klose (debian gcc
maintainer); most patches are already applied.
My patch for binutils debian package to build cross-binutils debs is in
#231707; I try to keep it up-to-date there. Unfortunately debian binutils
maintainer currently refuses to communicate about inclusion of the patch
in the package.
In addition to cross-toolachain related work, I also have packages EtPan
mail library (http://libetpan.sf.net/; ITP is at #250660). I needed that
library while playing with my Ipaq, and it was not available in Debain.
Currently packages are ready, and I am in process of communication with
Gerfried Fuchs <alfie@ist.org> about sponsoring the upload.
In future I'm goind to continue my cross-toolchain related work, and
continue to do random bug-fixing and QA work. Also, I probably will
package some libraries and tools that we use at the university. Pathan
library (http://software.decisionsoft.com/pathanIntro.html) is a good
candidate to become my next package.
My most notable non-debian free software projects are MLGroups
(http://zigzag.lvk.cs.msu.su/leafnode) and SmartMedia driver
(http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-mtd/2004-May/009766.html).
Since I spend lots of time doing debian-related work, I believe it would be
fair if I become a DD.
--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---
Searching Google for him does mostly reveal technical postings about
linux(-related) matters.
2. Philosophy and Procedures
----------------------------
Nikita demonstrated an fair understanding of Debian's Philosophy
and Procedures. He answered my Questions about the Social Contract,
the DFSG, the BTS etc.
3. Tasks and Skills
-------------------
Nikita is maintainer of libetpan, dpkg-cross and others. I did a
deeper review of those two. I had some questions about libetpan
that were answered appropriate.
He answered my questions regarding T&S successfully.
3a. Advocate questioning
------------------------
His advocate Wookey writes:
Nikita has done excellent work on patching the the Debian gcc and binutils sources
to build cross-toolchain debs that integrate nicely with the rest of Debian
painlessly. He has also done a lot of good work on dpkg-cross - the Debian
cross-build environment tool to fix a load of bugs and make it compatible
with the Embedded Debian Stag cross-build system. This is valuable work that
has needed doing for some time. He clearly has excellent technical skills in
this area, and understands how to work well with other Maintainers and subgroups.
I also asked other peoples working together with him like Matthias Klose
(doko), and got positive feedback.
4. Account information
----------------------
Preferred account name: yoush
Address to forward E-Mails to: yoush@cs.msu.su
5. Attachments
--------------
[ Not part of the public report ]
GPG Key with ID 0xC9132DDB
Recommendation of the advocate and logs of the discussions with applicant.
[in text-format and as mbox]
Cheers,
Andi
--
http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/
PGP 1024/89FB5CE5 DC F1 85 6D A6 45 9C 0F 3B BE F1 D0 C5 D1 D9 0C
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