Application - Core Developer - Ural Tunaboyu

Community Ubuntu Developer Membership
1

I, Ural Tunaboyu, apply for coredev rights.

Contact information:

I am applying because:

  • I’d like to eliminate delays in getting my work sponsored.
  • I’d like to become a full member of the release team.
  • I’d like to reduce the burden on my sponsors.
  • I’d like to be able to sponsor work of others.

I understand an application straight to coredev is unorthodox, but it is the only requirement I am missing to be a full member of the Ubuntu release team. Furthermore, as part of my work in Debcrafters I am mostly focused on packages in main and thus MOTU would not be sufficient.

Who I am

I’m Ural, I have been a developer at Canonical since July 2024. I first joined as part of Release Management but transitioned to Debcrafters at the outset of that team. I am based out of beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia and when I am not at my computer(s) I am in the surrounding rainforests.

My Ubuntu story

I have been using Ubuntu since Xenial when I installed it on multiple relatives’ computers without permission :sweat_smile:. Since then, I have always had at least one daily driver machine running the latest LTS in the house. I have been contributing to Ubuntu on-and-off since I joined Canonical but have actively started to seek coredev in the last year.

Examples of my work / Things I’m proud of

Areas of work

As a member of the Debcrafters team, I have been working on maintaining the health of packages in main. I primarily focus on merges and proposed-migration fixes, but I also actively do regular bug triage and fixes of minor bugs in the devel release. I am also a trainee member of the Release Team, and have been part of all point releases, EOLs, and release sprints since Oracular.

Furthermore, I participated in a rewrite of the auto upgrade testing for Ubuntu images and have been taking on a bigger and bigger maintainer role for the autopkgtest infrastructure since 2024. As of last cycle, I rewrote the autopkgtest charms, a process which I documented in blog posts on discourse.

Things I could do better

I could always do a better job of being more visible on the Matrix channels, especially since that is where the community is and I am a trainee member of the release team. Furthermore, I could be more involved in Debian by contributing more fixes upstream and understanding their processes better.

Plans for the future

General

If I get coredev rights, that would allow me to become a full member of the release team and help them with more release-critical tasks, especially in time for an LTS release. Additionally, I would be able to sponsor work for other members of the community who are working on their own upload rights including other members of the Debcrafters team. Finally, it is a dream of mine, as someone who habitually browses the proposed-migration report, to fix all packages that have been stuck on that report for longer than 100 days.

What I like least in Ubuntu

The number of people with coredev rights sometimes feels like a constraint on how much can be merged into Ubuntu.

2 Likes
2

I endorse Ural for Ubuntu Core Developer.

Sponsoring feedback

I have been Ural’s mentor in the Ubuntu Uploader Mentoring program for the last 9 months or so. In that time, I have sponsored many packages for him, and have spent considerable time discussing Ubuntu packaging and processes.

Ural has been doing high quality work for a while. As a Release Team trainee and autopkgtest infrastructure maintainer, Ural gained lots of relevant knowledge before entering the mentorship program. Since I started mentoring him, he has quickly learned various tools and processes like git-ubuntu, package merges, proposed migration, SRUs, etc.

Ural asks a lot of good questions, and is quick to internalize feedback. I am completely confident in Ural’s abilities, and I fully trust him to make good decisions as a Core Developer.

Specific experiences of working together

I have sponsored several merges for Ural, ranging from routine ones like this curl merge, to more complex merges like needrestart. Ural is good at evaluating existing delta. He adds context if necessary, and drops delta when appropriate.

This upload for racket-mode is from a +1 rotation. Ural figured out what was needed to fix the FTBFS in a way that is suitable for both Ubuntu and Debian, and he forwarded the change so that we could later sync from Debian again.

An example of an SRU I sponsored for Ural is simple-scan (noble, plucky). He did a good job preparing the patch, writing the SRU documentation, and driving the SRU to completion.

Areas of improvement and next steps

Ural should continue to deepen his knowledge of Debian packaging more generally, and continue to practice processes like transitions and SRUs. As with anyone, becoming a Core Developer is one step on a longer journey in Ubuntu, and I am fully confident that Ural is ready for this higher level of privilege and responsibility. Ural’s next steps should include Patch Pilot and sponsoring, which will provide opportunities for continued learning.

3

I endorse Ural for Ubuntu Core Developer. I believe he can be trusted with upload rights to Ubuntu right now.

Specific experiences of working together

During the past 1.5 years, I had extensive direct experience working with Ural in key areas of Ubuntu. In particular, we worked together on most of the tasks that concern releasing Ubuntu, with a focus on quality and automation aspects. The area of major interest is the autopkgtest infrastructure: Ural is fully familiar with the current system and is actively working on rewriting a second iteration of it. The same is happening with the proposed-migration process, including britney. Working on such projects, even without upload rights, gave Ural extensive knowledge of the processes that make Ubuntu possible.

Sponsoring feedback

I sponsored several packages for Ural (notably autopkgtest, but also bash, zsh, …). All the packaging work I saw was of excellent quality, but more important than the absolute technical level, I saw how Ural is able to think of the bigger picture, consider different possibilities, discuss options with fellow developers, and in general ask for feedback when needed.

I also sponsored syncs. While the sponsoring of a sync itself is obviously trivial, dropping an Ubuntu delta requires providing a rationale. When Ural did so, it was in a sound and concise way.

I have no concerns about Ural’s packaging skills.

Areas of improvement and next steps

I hope Ural will continue his learning journey in areas like proposed-migration and the release processes. I’m looking forward to seeing him join some of the other foundational Ubuntu development teams.

4

I am giving a strong +1 endorsement for Ural to be accepted as an UbuntuCoreDev.

Over the past year, Ural has been an active Ubuntu contributor. His work is consistently high-quality—not just on the packaging side, but also regarding infrastructure. He has demonstrated a solid understanding of Ubuntu processes and the community spirit, and has been actively engaged on Discourse providing regular status updates.

Specific experiences of working together

I have worked with Ural for about a year now. During that time, I’ve sponsored a number of uploads (UDD lists approximately 20) for him, including merges, build fixes, and patches for proposed migration issues.

Examples

Sponsoring feedback

The changes from Ural I reviewed were from high quality, following best practices (using git-ubuntu, triggering tests in a ppa before subscribing sponsors, detailed explanations of the fixes).

Ural has been also actively working with Paride on modernizing the Ubuntu autopkgtest setup. He has done a great job there: charming services and coordinating with Canonical IS to address infrastructure problems.

Areas of improvement and next steps

I look forward to seeing Ural join the +1 maintenance and sponsoring rotations once he receives his upload rights!

5

Actually too late because Ural is now a core-dev already (congratz on that!). I still wanted to comment on giving my full support for this from a development perspective (failed to do so in time, apparently :/). I haven’t sponsored much packages for Ural, so couldn’t give a full endorsement anyway.

Specific experience of working together

I’ve reviewed a lot of code until about one year ago, which gives me a good idea on how Ural reacts to feedback and how they work on designing software. They have always been very receptive to changes, and I have never had to explain things twice. They learn very fast and are really striving to write the best possible code, which are qualities highly appreciated for a core-dev. Now that time has passed and Ural has learned the ropes for core-dev, those qualities will really have a chance to shine in packaging work.
Examples: