Call for nominations: 2024 Ubuntu Technical Board

merlijn-sebrechts · November 24, 2024, 1:07pm

We’re looking for motivated people that want to join the Ubuntu Technical Board!

The Ubuntu Technical Board is responsible for the technical direction of Ubuntu. It makes decisions on package selection, packaging policy, installation systems and processes, kernel, X server, display management, library versions, and dependencies. The board works with relevant teams to establish a consensus on the right path to take, especially where diverse elements of Ubuntu cannot find consensus on shared components.

You can find more information about the Technical Board at Technical Board | Ubuntu

Who can apply

The eligibility requirements are

Be an Ubuntu Core Developer
Be available during typical meeting hours, see TechnicalBoardAgenda - Ubuntu Wiki
Insight into the Ubuntu Development process, architecture, and technical culture

The Technical Board usually meets twice a month in IRC and has discussions on its mailing list. They are current Ubuntu Core Developers with a proven track record of activity in the community. They have shown themselves over time to be able to work well with others and display the positive aspects of the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. They should be people who can judge contribution quality without emotion while engaging in an interview/discussion that communicates interest, a welcoming atmosphere, and which is marked by humanity, gentleness, and kindness.

How to apply

You can apply by sending your self-nomination to community-council@lists.ubuntu.com. In that email, please include the following.

Your name
Your Launchpad ID
Your employer (if disclosure is permitted)
A link to a page describing who you are, and explaining why you want to join the board. This can be a Discourse post, a page on your personal website, or your page in the Ubuntu Wiki.

Nominations are now open and will close according to the timeline below. Please do not hesitate to share this post with anyone you will be a great fit for the Technical Board!

Election Timeline

Wednesday 2024-12-04, 23:59 UTC Call for nomination closes.
- After this, the Community Council will review the submissions, submit them to Mark Shuttleworth for shortlisting, and set up the vote based on Mark’s shortlist.
Sunday 2024-12-08 Voting starts (Ubuntu Development team is eligible to vote)
Sunday 2024-12-22, 23:59 UTC Voting ends

On behalf of the Community Council,
Merlijn Sebrechts

alexmurray · November 25, 2024, 3:29am

Thanks for posting this @merlijn-sebrechts - it seems SSO is down for the wiki so I am adding a reply to this post as the ‘page describing who you are etc’ part of the process to apply for reelection to the TB.

I’m Alex Murray (alexmurray on Launchpad/amurray on IRC) and have been a part of the Ubuntu community as a long-time user and enthusiast since back in 2006. In 2018 I was privileged to join Canonical as the Ubuntu Security Tech Lead and have worked as part of that amazing team ever since. I have a passion for making Ubuntu as secure and usable out-of-the-box whilst also ensuring Canonical has a great relationship with our community. In 2022 I was appointed to the Ubuntu Technical Board and have served the community in that role for the past 2 years.

I started and am still hosting the Ubuntu Security Podcast (now every 2 weeks) for the last 6 years as a way to evangelise the awesome work of the Ubuntu Security team and the various security aspects of Ubuntu.

I am also involved with security aspects of snapd and as one of the snap store reviewers to help guide snap publishers to make sure their snaps can work as smoothly as possible for their users.

Finally, I’ve been a core-dev for 3 and a half years now as well. I have a strong passion for Ubuntu and our community, and was part of the core-dev Office Hours booth at the recent Ubuntu Summit in the Hague. This was a great chance to both get to meet other Ubuntu developers from the community IRL but also to help resolve both various technical issues and provide guidance on ways to better approach and navigate Ubuntu development for unfamiliar community members.

I would be honoured to have the privilege of serving the community again as part of the Ubuntu Technical Board for the next 2 years if so chosen.

Thanks for your consideration.

juliank · November 25, 2024, 8:01pm

I’m going to follow Alex’s lead here and post mine as a reply to to keep things organized

I’m Julian (juliank on Launchpad, IRC), many may primarily recognize me as the maintainer of APT. I have been a part of the Ubuntu and Debian communities since about 2006, an Ubuntu Member since 2007 (17 years now, wow, half of my life).

My interest in Ubuntu started in 2006 from the Debian side, when I worked with @mvo on various package management stuff while still in school, such as APT, python-apt, gnome-app-install, software-center, and so on. I was working on packaging the Ubuntu tools for Debian primarily.

In 2015 I took over as the primary apt maintainer from mvo, and started upstream branches for Ubuntu LTS releases, providing updates for the stable releases, and 1 year later, in 2016, I became a Core Developer.

At the start of 2018 I joined Canonical in the Ubuntu Foundations team. Since then I have of course been significantly more active in Ubuntu than before. One of the first things I did when I joined was improve the merge-o-matic to add dynamic filtering via JavaScript to be able to easily search for my past merges and team merges - good memories. These days I’m in the Foundations’ system squad, which takes care of the core distro packaging, and of course continue to maintain APT and other pieces of the package management stack.

Due to my exposure to all sorts of weird issues as APT maintainer, I have an unusually strong and deep knowledge of packaging issues, but it doesn’t end there. I also was one of two main maintainers of autopkgtest.ubuntu.com with @laney before the QA team was around, did related work in britney and I filled the gap that @cyphermox left on boot loader maintenance, a sometimes incredibly complex field, and I also know our image building tools reasonably well. Sometimes I dabble a bit in Launchpad source code and repeatedly have worked with the Launchpad team on projects. As a Debian developer specifically I am also well trained in licensing questions, and I have often engaged with upstreams on licensing problems.

During this year’s time_t transition I had to temporarily rewrite parts of our tooling in a simplified manner to track the progress of the transition, and at the same time, I was working on implementing stronger cryptography in APT, and also executed the transition to usrmerge for the essential package set succesfully ahead of (and in collaboration with) Debian. I also took over germinate maintenance from @cjwatson, a critical piece of technology that powers our seeding of packages in main.

I probably forgot some places I touched!

I think this breadth and depth of experience and the expertise that I gained in it would make an excellent addition to the Technical Board, and I would be honored to have your vote.