Report for new developer applicant Erik Schanze <schanzi_@gmx.de>:
1. Identification & Background
------------------------------
Check with Keyid 0x30825345:
Syncing Debian Keyrings with rsync from keyring.debian.org
Receiving and checking key
gpg: requesting key 30825345 from hkp server subkeys.pgp.net
114 signatures not checked due to missing keys
pub 1024D/30825345 2002-09-13
Key fingerprint = 0DAF EEA4 1C0C FD21 111B 5C3F C007 DEBB 3082 5345
uid Erik Schanze <schanzi_@gmx.de>
sig!3 307D56ED 2004-03-15 Noèl Köthe <noel@debian.org>
sig!3 30825345 2002-09-13 Erik Schanze <schanzi_@gmx.de>
sig!3 554FB4C6 2005-03-09 Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
sig!3 5E0577F2 2004-10-31 Martin Pitt <martin@piware.de>
sig!3 C4CF8EC3 2003-12-06 Torsten Werner <twerner@debian.org>
[snip]
Key is signed by above DDs, and is fine.
Applicant writes:
------------------------------------------------------
I'm 31 years old and study computer science in 8th turn. I live in
Freital near Dresden in Saxony, Germany. Currently I complete my study
by a diploma thesis until end of this year.
[snip non-public]
Debian has been my favourite distribution for almost 3 years. Before
that (since 1998), I tried to use several SuSE versions, but never got
it really to work. Looking back I can say I was missing needed
hardheadedness. ;-)
At the beginning of my study, a new try with SuSE 7.1 was triggered by a
donated box from SuSE to all new students and the class "operating
systems" held by Prof. Lothar Koch, a Unix and Linux expert.
He imparted me the idea of Free Software and started my rapidly growing
interesting in Linux and Free Software (and the ideas behind).
I got a member of our local Linux User Group
(http://lug-dd.schlittermann.de/).
In 2002 I switched over Knoppix to Debian, because I was looking for a
more open and free distribution than SuSE. (I learned to hate YaST ;-)
Around this time Linux became my only OS at home and at university.
In 2003 we (some people of our LUG) started our yearly event
"Linux-Info-Tag Dresden" (http://www.linux-info-tag.de/) at last
weekend in october and we founded the club "Linux-Info-Tag e. V." in
2004 for better organizing. We do this events to propagate the ideas
behind Linux and Free Software to the public. We show what we do and
explain why we do it.
I organize the Debian booth together with Alexander Schmehl every year.
In 2003 I started my activities on Debian to give something back to the
community that give me this great collection of Free Software. First I
read basic documentation like Developers Reference, Debian Policy and
New Maintainer Guide. I was impressed by the strict focus on Free
Software without any sellout; I like it. Debian makes it esay to
contribute in many ways, that encourage me to begin.
The german translation of NM-Guide was outdated, so I did a new one.
http://www.debian.de/doc/maint-guide/
After that I translated some debconf templates to improove the usibility
for Germans. IMO Debian should be widely localized to make it easy for
new users.
http://people.debian.org/~barbier/intl/l10n/unstable/po-debconf/de
I wrote and translate some manpages and tried to provide feedback by
good bug reports.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=submitter&data=schanzi_usenet%40gmx.de
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=submitter&data=schanzi_%40gmx.de
I'm willing to provide some spare time to Debian to give something back
from the great feeling in using this system. "System" means in this
context not only the OS, it also include the easy possibility to live
the idea of Free Software, to learn much about software handling (like
programming, handling of bugs etc.) and working together with other
people on the same goal. Debian let me feel, what "community" means, it
is nice to be a part of it.
I'd like to maintain further packages, do more translations and work on
documentation. If I'm more experienced in packaging, I'd like to
provide some help on debian-mentors and as a sponsor.
------------------------------------------------------
2. Philosophy and Procedures
-----------------------------
Erik has a good understanding of Debians Philosophy and
Procedures. He answered all my Questions about Social Contract,
DFSG, BTS etc. in a good way.
3. Tasks and Skills
-------------------
Erik is Maintainer of dvgrab, imgvtopgm, txt2pdbdoc, afio and gif2png all
Packages in Debian.
He also answered my other Questions regarding T&S without problems.
One of his sponsors, Daniel Kobras writes:
------------------------------------------------------
There's the oldskool type of developers who don't mind grinding through heaps
of library source code in order to track down bugs in their applications.
That's not the impression I've gotten of Erik in the past 16 months that
we've been working together.
The second best type of developers prefers to leave code mining to others,
but knows who to ask, and how to ask in order to solve bugs. I think Erik
fits very well into this category.
Basically all of my knowledge about Erik relates to his work on dvgrab, a
package I had put up for adoption in spring 2004, and that I've been sponsoring
for Erik since. It might even have been the first package he started
maintaining. Therefore at first it took us a few iterations of Erik providing a
new revision, and me pointing out errors or improvements. These errors usually
pointed at a lack of experience rather than a lack of fundamental skills,
though. I still occasionally don't accept a new dvgrab upload on the first go,
but then I know the package very well, and I'm picky. Also, I'm asking him to
correct even minor cosmetic issues because I've gotten the impression that Erik
is eager to take advice. He's always been fast to respond, not only to me, but
also to submitters of bug reports. I found him very polite and pleasant to work
with. Based on my expercience, I think Erik can certainly be relied upon.
In conclusion, might not be a hardcore hacker, but I consider him to be
a skillful and competent maintainer whose maybe lacking a bit of seniority
still. But hey, that's the N in NM, isn't it?
------------------------------------------------------
4. Recommendation
-----------------
Erik seems to be responsive to the users of his packages, and other
developers. He's answered all my questions well, and kept me updated as
to his progress (he needed a three week break so he could finish his
dissertation at University).
I recommend to accept him as a Debian Developer.
Account: eriks
Forward-Email: schanzi_@gmx.de
Full logs of converstion at http://www.halon.org.uk/debian/erik.txt
Neil
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