How to find a sponsor

The ability to upload directly to the Archive is carefully managed to ensure the stability and security of Ubuntu. New contributors don’t have upload rights immediately – instead they must request Sponsorship from someone who does have upload rights whenever they…

  • Make changes to existing packages or incremental updates

  • Submit security updates or bug fixes

  • Introduce new packages to Ubuntu

Preparation

If you follow the guidance for contributors, your changes should be properly prepared for sponsorship. In general, try to remember that someone else needs to understand what you’ve done – so “show your working” as they say.

For any non-trivial change, it can be good practice to discuss your plans with a potential sponsor after you think you know what needs done, but before you’ve actually done it. Often, an experienced developer can offer alternative approaches that may save you time or provide better results.

Seeking sponsorship

There are three ways to find a sponsor: two formal, and one informal.

Via a merge proposal

The first formal way is by filing a Merge Proposal (MP) with canonical-<your-team> (e.g. canonical-server-reporter for Ubuntu Server team members) set as a reviewer. Make sure to mention in your MP comments that you’re also in need of sponsorship. If the reviewer has upload rights they can take care of sponsoring the upload as well.

Via a Launchpad bug

The second formal (and more traditional) approach is to file a bug report in Launchpad, attach your changes as a debdiff(1), and then subscribe ubuntu-sponsors (or ubuntu-security-sponsors for security issues). This approach is generally used only if a package is not in git-ubuntu or if an MP can’t be generated for some reason.

To request sponsorship, follow these steps:

  1. File an Ubuntu bug in Launchpad or follow up on an existing one

  2. Add the necessary files, such as patches or .diff.gz files, according to the package’s requirements

  3. Link your changes to the bug; see Seeking Sponsorship

  4. Subscribe ubuntu-sponsors or ubuntu-security-sponsors to the bug.

Via chat

Informally, you can also try approaching possible sponsors via chat or email and directly asking them for sponsorship.

This can be helpful in the case of urgent issues, or if you want to find sponsors outside your usual circle.

Canonical employees typically have ready sponsors from their team mates. However, sponsors can also be found elsewhere in Canonical or in the wider community. Having a diversity of sponsors can be useful when applying for MOTU and Core Dev, since it will demonstrate breadth of your experience and trustworthiness.

Responding to feedback from sponsors

If a sponsor reviews your changes and requests further changes, make the changes to the branch you were working on, then commit them by running:

$ bzr commit

Now, push your changes to Launchpad. Since bzr remembers the previous push location, you can run:

$ bzr push

After pushing your changes, reply to the sponsor’s request explaining the changes you made, and request a re-review. You can also respond directly on the merge proposal page in Launchpad.