Hi everyone! My name is Merlijn Sebrechts. Feel free to call me “Merlin”, which is the English translation of my name. 
I would like to become an Ubuntu Member.
I started using Ubuntu as a daily driver in 2013 when I went on an internship in Kigoma, Tanzania and left my Windows laptop at home. When I came back to Belgium, the first thing I did was remove Windows 8 from my main laptop and install Ubuntu. I became active on AskUbuntu and spent a lot of time on there while hiding from my schoolwork 
. During my masters thesis, I started using Juju to build a Big Data PaaS and I started contributing a lot to the documentation and by writing Charms. I helped kick-start the “Ubuntu Communitheme” initiative by writing documentation and messing with build automation.
In the summer of 2018, I became a cyborg and while recovering from surgery, I became really interested in snapcraft. I started writing documentation and contributing to the tooling to create snaps of desktop applications. Although I have a lot less time now that I’m working full-time again, I still maintain a bunch of desktop snaps and still try to contribute where/when I can. I recently joined the snapcrafters group as a core member.
Where to find me
| Telegram | @galgalesh |
| @galgalesh | |
| merlijn.sebrechts@gmail.com | |
| Github | galgalesh |
| Launchpad | merlijn-sebrechts |
| Askubuntu | merlijn-sebrechts |
| Ubuntu Discourse | merlijn-sebrechts |
| Snapcraft Forum | galgalesh |
| IRC | merlijn-sebrechts (I only use it when I’m forced to) |
On most platforms, I’m either merlijn, merlijn-sebrechts or galgalesh. I tried to standardize once, but a bunch of platforms don’t seem to handle username changes well, so I gave up.
Contributions reference
- I’m a core member of “snapcrafters” and maintain a bunch of Snap packages including Krita, Signal Desktop, Arduino IDE, PhotoScape, Easy OpenVPN Server, SDLPoP, Mattermost Desktop, S4A, Bridge Designer, Climate Trail and tmnationsforever.
- I maintain the
sommelier-corescript which makes snapping Windows applications a breeze. Also theqtctlscript to show bookmarks to common folders in Qt snaps. - I write documentation and blog posts about the Snapcraft ecosystem.
- I occasionally write PR’s for
snapcraftandsnapd. - I helped kickstart the Ubuntu community theme initiative, though my biggest contribution there might have been suggesting to call it “Yaru”.
- I used to be very active in the Juju community, writing a bunch of Big Data Charms as part of the Tengu Team, writing a bunch of documentation, and helping design the 2.0 version of the
charms.reactiveframework and writing a paper about how cool it is. Had the great pleasure of being appreciated by Jorge Castro and can confirm he is a Chinese botnet. - I answered a bunch of questions on AskUbuntu.
My plans and ideas for Ubuntu in the future
I’m currently focusing on the Snapcraft ecosystem:
- Making it easier to snap Desktop applications by helping with documentation and tooling.
- Trying to dispel some myths about Snap and spread the word about what I find cool about it.
- Maintaining and improving existing Desktop snaps.
- If I ever get to it: writing good tooling and documentation for how to preserve old (32-bit) software in a snap.
- Contribute to Project Kebe (open source snap store) to make it easier to deploy and get started.
In my opinion, snaps are the best solution to solve the issues of distributing desktop software on Ubuntu and Linux as a whole. That said, it contains some big warts and doesn’t have the best reputation, both of which I’d like to help fix. Although my ambition is often bigger than my free time 
