Posted on by Daniel Holbach

Unsung Heroes… the Sponsoring Queue

In Open Source we have lots and lots of unsung heroes. If my mom (using Kubuntu at work) won’t notice some awesome piece of work somebody achieved that’s one thing. As far as I know she doesn’t even check Ubuntu’s press releases. But we have folks in our community who are much more in the loop than my mom. Most of them won’t know that somebody spent hours improving our compiler or made the bug workflow easier or spent hours improving some detail.

There’s one group of people I’d like to thank particularly because of its importance for Ubuntu. Everybody involved in the Sponsoring workflow. What does Sponsoring mean? There’s a wiki page explaining it, but here’s how it works:

  • you fix a bug or update a package and have a package change of some sort ready
  • in a bug report you’ll attach your solution
  • then subscribe the sponsors team
  • the fine people in the team will review your proposed changes and upload them eventually.

Where that fits into the bigger picture? Easy: it allows people who are not Ubuntu developers (yet) to contribute fixes and improvements. It’s particularly important as it helps us to refine the patches and education of new contributors is an immanent feature of the process.

To make the awesomeness more concrete: the sponsors process several hundreds of those review requests per month.

I talked to a few people, new contributors to the MOTU team and people doing sponsoring about the incredible work they do.

One of the first people I talked to was Morten Kjeldgaard who joined the MOTU on a sunny day in April. He’s doing awesome work in the areas of MOTU Science and elsewhere and is very active in his Sponsoring work. Let’s hear what he has to says:

<dholbach> Thanks for doing sponsoring – you kick ass! 🙂

<mok0> How can you tell?

<dholbach> Oh – I have a fairly close look on the sponsoring queue
myself, so I notice who’s deeply involved in it and I appreciate the
good work you do there!

<mok0> Ah 🙂

<dholbach> Do you still remember when you first were being sponsored?
What did it feel like?

<mok0> I was first sponsored when I submitted a new package to Ubuntu
via the REVU system. It was my first experience with the reviewing
system, which initially felt a bit frustrating, so it really felt
great! I have since come to appreciate the careful — sometimes
nitpicking — reviewing procedure, and the ping-pong that goes on
between sponsor and packager. It makes for a much better result in the
end, much better packages for the users and a better user experience.

<dholbach> So you learned a lot?

<mok0> I have really learned a lot, on many levels. First, of course,
I have learned a lot about packaging software, but I have also learned
a lot about licensing, free software, and last bug not least, how the
development process goes on in the free software development
community.

<dholbach> How is that today when you’re reviewing? Do you have a lot
of conversations with people you sponsor? Do a lot of patches need
discussion?

<mok0> I have mostly had conversations with people on IRC. I find that
it is more efficient, and you can create a better atmosphere and help
the packagers better. I have not discussed patches so much (yet), I
have to admit that when I have attempted to apply a patch and it
doesn’t apply for some reason, it is a bit frustrating, and I merely
ask for another patch that works.

<dholbach> Absolutely – it’s one thing I experienced myself… talking
to people on IRC and fixing bugs together was not only instructional,
but also big fun!

<mok0> Yes it is big fun and having a fun, creative and inspiring
atmosphere is the hallmark of Ubuntu, and it is really important to
maintain that!

<dholbach> Thanks a lot for summing up my feelings exactly – it’s one
of the things that makes me enjoy being a MOTU like on my first day
🙂

<dholbach> How would you like proposed patches to improve or are they
all good already? Is there a particularly common mistake?

<mok0> The most common mistake I have encountered is that the patch is
made against another version than the most recent one from
Debian/unstable. If the patches from LaunchPad apply, I generally find
them quite good. Sometimes the submitter has forgotten things like
closing the LP bug, then I just fix that for them. I feel that in
order to save time and be more efficient, we need to have the
helpfulness at all levels of Ubuntu development, so it wouldn’t make
sense to reject the patch and send it back to the submitter for
trivial reasons. That is the way of the MOTU 🙂

<dholbach> Absolutely and with a helpful and friendly comment the
contributors usually incorporate the advice the next time. 🙂

<dholbach> What kind of packages do you mostly sponsor? Do you have a
strategy or something you particularly like?

<mok0> My big interest is packages for science, I am familiar with
several of the packages via my work, so when I have to choose from the
long list on u-s-u, those are the ones I usually pick first. Other
than that, I have to admit, I give priority to software that I like,
that I think is useful or fun.
<dholbach> And that’s absolutely fine. 🙂

<dholbach> What kind of patches / fixes would you like to
see more?

<mok0> I would like to see patches that improve the user
experience of ubuntu. Some things are really simple, perhaps trivial,
but having icons for all gui apps in the menus, that the icons are
good looking and follow the style and so on, it is important when
users first come to Ubuntu and need to be convinced that this is a
truly great OS. Other things are more complicated (and I don’t know
much about it) like sound and video. These are things that users
expect from their OS, and they have to “just work”. Fortunately, we
have several MOTUs that are experts in that area!

<dholbach> Is there something new contributors could help you with? 🙂

<mok0> The Ubuntu Contributors is a new construction at Ubuntu, and a
valuable one. In practice, I think, they will become the recruiting
grounds for the MOTU. These are people who are already experienced
with Ubuntu as users, but who have gone further than that, they have
started to fiddle with the packages that make up the OS. There are
lots of really good stuff that the contributors are doing: they are
looking at Debian/unstable to seee what bugs have been fixed there,
and if something needs to be sync’ed or merged into the next version
of Ubuntu. They are also fixing bugs and working on improving the
general user experience of Ubuntu, but — last but not least — also
to maintain the “geek” factor, where we have the latest and greatest
versions of the big important packages.

<dholbach> That sounds very good – so you think looking at bugs that
have been “fixed elsewhere”, test those fixes and incorporate them
into Ubuntu is a good idea for new contributors?

<mok0> Absolutely. But, one important thing is that it is necessary
for the contributor to make sure (s)he _understands_ what the patch is
doing, and that they carefully _test_ the software on their own
workstation before they forward it to the LP queue. Specifically, the
contributor should see that patch fixes what it is supposed to do. I
hope there are many Ubuntu users out there that will see that they now
have a truly great way to contribute without having to know a lot
about programming etc. that is generally required for the MOTU.

<dholbach> Absolutely! Do you a message you would like to go out to
new contributors?

<mok0> Yes… keep up the great work, you ROCK! (I believe that is the
typical Ubuntu phrase) 🙂

<dholbach> Thanks a lot for the great work you do! Keep it up! 🙂
<dholbach> That’s been great fun – thanks a lot for your time!

<mok0> thanks dholbach!
* dholbach hugs you
* mok0 hugs back

Also I talked to Iulian Udrea who got around 20 uploads sponsored to the Ubuntu archive already. He’s a great guy and really easy to work with. Here’s what he has to say about Sponsoring:

<dholbach> What has your sponsoring experience been like up until now?

<Iulian> Well, to be honest it was really amazing. The sponsors are great,
patient, respectful and not only them, ALL Ubuntu contributors. Every time I
had a fix I always found someone that is available to give me a hand to
upload my patch

<dholbach> That sounds great – Did you learn a lot in the process of
sponsoring? Do you remember the last thing you’ve learned in the sponsoring
process?

<Iulian> Of course I learned a lot. The wiki pages were excellent and very
useful. The last thing… uhmm, when I send a patch to a sponsor I have to
wait until the sponsor is available to check and upload it. I always keep in
mind that I am not the only one who waits, so in this case everyone gets what
they want.

<dholbach> Right – that makes sense.

<dholbach> Which packages do you mostly look after? Do you follow some kind of
strategy when you try to fix bugs and make Ubuntu better?

<Iulian> I am using GNOME and obviously I like to help with gnome packages.
There are some other packages that I always use and would like to give a hand
when it’s needed. The packages are: irssi, vim-*, git-* etc. I also mantain a
package in universe and I would like to take care of it.
No, not really, I do not follow some kind of strategy when fixing bugs. Just
make sure that every change I made is the correct one.

<dholbach> Awesome – seb128 will be happy to hear that. 🙂

<dholbach> Is contributing to Ubuntu hard? If so, what do you think could be
easier?

<Iulian> Contributing to Ubuntu is like riding a bike. When you get used to
it you will never quit using it. I think every thing in Ubuntu is easy so
the most important thing is that we should/must keep up the good work.

<dholbach> Excellent – I was secretly hoping to hear that… I too feel that
it takes a bit of courage and pioneer feeling to dive into it and sharpen
one’s detective skills. If you’ve experienced it as a “bike ride” – that
makes me very happy. 🙂

<dholbach> Is there a message you would like to go out to the Ubuntu sponsors?

<Iulian> Not really, no. Just make sure that there are no open bugs in the
sponsors queue. 🙂

<dholbach> One to new contributors? 🙂

<Iulian> First of all I would like to say that you guys did the best thing to
start contributing to Ubuntu. Please don’t forget that the hardest step is
to get in, once you’re in you will never want to get out. Trust me! Another
thing is that no one knows everything and what I want to tell is when you have
something that you don’t understand or have a question, please, do NOT
hesitate to ask. 🙂

* dholbach hugs you 🙂
* Iulian hugs dholbach back.

The message I would like to get out?