On this page, I try to keep a log of my activities in the free software world. But I don’t update it very frequently and it’s not exhaustive. You can learn much more by checking out my blog.
Last update: 2012-01-03
2011
- December
- Packaged WordPress 3.3, quilt 0.50, zim 0.54.
- Further improvements to the nautilus-dropbox packaging.
- Review of ledgersmb’s package.
- Multiarch work on dpkg.
- November
- The crowdfunding campaign for the Debian Administrator’s Handbook is over. The liberation target is not yet reached (we’re at 59%).
- Released dpkg 1.16.1.2
- Created a squeeze backport for dpkg 1.16.1.1.
- Multiarch work on dpkg.
- Moved the Package Tracking System from master.debian.org to quantz.debian.org together with Martin Zobel Helas.
- October
- The crowdfunding campaign for the Debian Administrator’s Handbook reached its minimal goal.
- Serious improvements for the nautilus-dropbox packaging.
- Creation of dh_linktree while packaging a wordpress update.
- Released a security update for python-django.
- Multiarch work on dpkg.
- September
- Drafted the announcement for the dpkg 1.16.1 release.
- Fixed a bunch of bugs discovered in dpkg 1.16.1.
- Bootstrapped a hardening release goal.
- Launched the crowdfunding campaign for the Debian Administrator’s Handbook.
- August
- Packaged WordPress 3.2.1.
- Packaged gnome-shell-timer for easy usage of the Pomodoro technique in GNOME Shell.
- Test & help setup the new repositories with versions of dpkg autobuilt from Git (courtesy of Michael Prokop).
- July
- Attended the Libre Software Meeting and helped on the Debian booth.
- Attended Debconf11, held a BoF about Debian Rolling.
- Improved dpkg-buildflags so that it’s possible to enable hardening build flags by default.
- Improved the “3.0 (quilt)” source format to avoid recording unexpected changes.
- June
- Lots of work on dpkg (2 new features, a dozen of bugfixes, many discussions with the technical committee/the policy team/the debhelper maintainer)
- Setup the website of my English book: debian-handbook.info
- Created an official Package for Dropbox.
- May
- Preliminary work on “SAT-Britney”, a tool to help manage Debian rolling & testing.
- Improvements to dpkg triggers.
- Represented Debian at Solutions Linux in Paris (held a booth).
- Helped alioth.debian.org admins after a big infrastructural change.
- April
- Helped with GNOME 3 packaging.
- Lots of discussions to design Debian Rolling.
- Updated my French book for Debian Squeeze (still going on)
- March
- Resumed maintenance work of the developers-reference manual.
- Wrote Debian articles for OMG! Ubuntu.
- Triaged dpkg bugs on Launchpad.
- February
- Implemented multi-arch support in dpkg (funded by Linaro).
- Launched a Debian CD/DVD shop.
- January
- Decided to be fully transparent about the donations received.
2010
- Managed dpkg’s participation to Google’s Code In, 2 students contributed patches.
- Created a LibreOffice/OpenOffice template for Debian presentations.
- Gave a talk introducing recent features of dpkg-dev during the Paris mini-debconf.
- Wrote my first article for Linux Weekly News.
- Created Flattr FOSS, a way to support free software developement with the Flattr micropayment service.
- Rewrote update-alternatives in C to get rid of the perl dependency in dpkg.
- Joined Ubuntu as member to continue foster cooperation between both projects.
- Created dpkg-buildflags. Stabilized the API of the perl modules provided by dpkg and put them in their own package (libdpkg-perl).
2009
- Finally managed to get the new source formats accepted in unstable.
- Wrote a 3-way merge tool for Debian changelogs.
- Wrote and managed DEP3 about the meta-information to embed in patches.
- Attended Debconf and came back with an idea to deal with interdependence problems.
- Prepared the 4th edition of my book and organized a Debian contribution contest for the publication (with books to win).
- Wrote the dak patch to support the new formats of source packages.
- Wrote a test-suite for update-alternatives, and rewrote it completely to fix all of its bugs.
2008
- Made a proposal to follow the maintenance state of all packages.
- Pushed hundreds of commits on dpkg with more than 80 bugs corrected.
- Implemented the new source package format « 3.0 (quilt) », recompiled the archive with this format, and submitted bugs to prepare the future transition in Squeeze.
- Participated again in the Debian Project Leader election.
- Got officially integrated in the dpkg maintenance team.
2007
- Launched the Misc Developer News (first issue).
- Worked on dpkg: rewrite and simplification of dependencies by dpkg-gencontrol.
- Made lots of contributions for the DSA team hoping to get integrated in the future (it never happened). Wrote a patch to integrate a “web” password in the central LDAP to be used in the central Request Tracker installation, and to be used in a new Openid authentication service (see ticket 55, account “guest”, password “readonly”).
- Drafted a centralized and somewhat standardized description of teams on wiki.debian.org/Teams (I made the layout and filled the first few teams, the rest has been contributed).
- Wrote guidelines for Debian’s internal teams: wiki.debian.org/Teams/Guidelines.
- Wrote a specification to enhance the (generated) dependencies on shared libraries. Implemented the specification, the result got merged in dpkg 1.14.8.
- Alioth goes slowly forward: support of Mercurial, Thijs Kinkhorst help us to sort the uncontrolled installations of web applications.
- Candidated as DPL with the goal to put a team in place.
- Insisted until we got the right to make backups of Alioth on backup.debian.org (alas after a serious incident)
2006
- Managed a Debian booth during Educatice in Paris together with Roland Mas.
- Migrated Alioth on an new machine. And did lots of small things related to Alioth. Wichert Akkerman retires from the team, we take Stephen Gran on board.
- Mentored a “Google Summer of Code” project: Distribution-Wide Tracker Tool
- Improved the PTS (bounces management, integration with derivative distributions).
- Managed the transition towards a new “Python policy”
- Helped funding the debian-publicity team
- Managed and promoted the python modules packaging team
- Started a big flamew^H^Hdiscussion about Ubuntu with this announce.
2005
- Managed a Debian booth during Educatice in Paris together with Christian Perrier.
- Participated in the mini-Debian booth during the Libre Software Meeting.
- Setup planet-fr.debian.net, aggregating French-speaking Debian blogs.
- Made a proposal to manage orphaned packages with external help.
- Founded Freexian, a service company specialized in Debian Gnu/Linux.
2004
- Published my French Debian book.
2003
2002
- Participated in the Debian Project Leader election.
- Created Debian-Edu, the sub-project dedicated to the education and teaching community.
- Update of the Debian Developer’s Reference.
- Organized a Bug Squashing Party for sarge.
2001
- Setup the Package Tracking System.
- Created the debian-devel-french mailing list to discuss Debian development in French too.
2000
- Helped to setup the first Debian conference (debconf 0) during the Libre Software Meeting (LSM) in Bordeaux (France).
- Worked a lot withing Debian-QA. Sponsored lots of persons that wanted to become Debian developers (including Christian Marillat).
1999
- Created qa.debian.org, the website of Debian’s quality assurance team.
- Contributed to the creation of the perl policy and coordinated the migration to perl 5.005.
- Setup the sponsorship system for the new maintainers. Prospective developers can have their work reviewed and their package integrated before becoming official developers (which at that time was taking too long).
- Write YACS (Yet Another CD Script) which quickly became debian-cd, the official script used to generate ISO images of Debian.
- Got a primary push mirror in France.
- A NMU on dpkg to fix a core dump related to locales (in fact I did nothing complicated, I just recompiled with a different option).
1998
- Built my first packages: sympa and libmsgcat-perl.
- Became an official Debian developer.
- Created a list of buggy packages…
- and adopted dpkg-ftp just after. Corrected all its bugs.
1997
- First installation of Debian on my PC.
