Larry Cafiero (lcafiero)
About me
My name is Larry Cafiero. I'm 51, and I live in Scotts Valley (Santa Cruz County), California, U.S.A. I'm a journalist by profession: Currently, I am a copy editor on the news desk at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. More importantly (to me at least), I'm a returning student at Cabrillo College, currently studying in the Unix/Linux Administrator Certificate program. I am a former president and former secretary/treasurer of the Cabrillo College GNU/Linux Users Group.
I consider myself a FOSS evangelist after finding out about -- and using -- FOSS programs during my campaign as the Green Party candidate for California Insurance Commissioner in 2006 (270,218 votes, 3.2 percent). Since then, I have published Open Source and Free Software Reporter (http://www.opensourcereporter.net) and I currently blog as Larry the Free Software Guy (http://larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com).
Not only this, I am a partner in Redwood Digital Research in Felton, California. RDR promotes the use of Linux through providing Linux conversion services and networking/server maintenance for small office/home office environments throughout the San Lorenzo Valley and Santa Cruz County.
After several months of distro-hopping -- I started out with Debian and have leaned toward its derivatives for a most of this time -- it wasn't until the beginning of this year that I started using Fedora on a regular basis to help test a GNU/Linux version of dbEntrance, a MySQL browser currently on the market for Macintosh.
Introducing Fedora at Cabrillo College
Karsten Wade, Fedora's community gardener, and I introduced Fedora 9 at the Cabrillo College GNU/Linux Users Group installfest in May 2008. I remarked to Karsten that Santa Cruz may not be big enough for two ambassadors, but he disagreed and urged me to apply. So here I am.
Needless to say, we brought Cambridge to Cabrillo when it became available and, like clockwork, we'll bring the rest of Fedora's lineup to the college when releases occur.
Why I use Fedora
Fedora is an outstanding distro, and it works for me on several levels. As a long-time Mac guy (I still am, although I am warming up to Intel with GNU/Linux), perhaps the most important point to me is the fact that Fedora continues to develop for the PowerPC platform. This is smart, because there is so much Macintosh hardware out there that's still working, good as new, which has been abandoned by Apple because their OS progress leaves this perfectly good hardware behind.
Fedora Activity Day -- LinuxFest Northwest
On April 25, Fedora Activity Day will take place at LinuxFest Northwest from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
You can follow the progress of FAD and LFNW at http://larrythefedoraguy.wordpress.com
Felton Linux Users Group
As an offshoot of Lindependence (see below), some geeks in Felton have gathered together to form the Felton Linux Users Group. Felton LUG may be distro agnostic, but Fedora is aptly represented there. In fact, it's a policy of FLUG to have the latest distros available, and Leonidas will be on hand upon its release.
Join me in Lindependence
My primary project until July is organizing the Lindependence 2008 project in Felton, California, U.S.A., where GNU/Linux and FOSS are being introduced to a town of 6,000 in the Santa Cruz Mountains during the course of the month of July. Three meetings/installfests were held in July 2008, and approximately 30 people converted to GNU/Linux right off the bat. We're monitoring their progress as time goes on.
Lindependence joins forces with Software Freedom Day, and in 2009 the Lindependence/SFD event in Felton takes place on Sept. 19 at the Redwood Digital Research offices, 6116 Highway 9 in Felton.
OSWALD -- Oregon State Wireless Active Learning Device
Oregon State University is developing a small computer originally called the Computer Science Platform for Learning (with an original code name of "Fuzzy Walrus"), which recently was renamed OSWALD -- Oregon State Wireless Active Learning Device. OSWALD provides a huge flexibility and variety of uses beyond the educational realm. You can take a look at http://beaversource.oregonstate.edu/projects/cspfl
Fedora would benefit greatly from participating in this project, just as the OSU would reap the rewards of having Fedora help out. As such, I have joined the Fedora Mini SIG.
Contact me
I can be reached at lcafiero-at-fedoraproject-dot-org or at larry-dot-cafiero-at-gmail-dot-com. My IRC handle is lcafiero and usually I can be found at the following IRC channels in FreeNode: #fedora-ambassadors, #fedora-mktg, #lindependence and #entrance. If you need to reach me immediately, I am at 1-831-335-7303 or 1-831-706-3299 -- one of those numbers will likely ring where I'm at (no, I don't have a cell phone). I live in the Pacific time zone in the United States, which is -8 from GMT (-7 during Daylight Savings Time).
Miscellanea
I have opened a small-business/SOHO (small office/home office) computer networking and maintence shop in Felton called Redwood Digital Research . . . . I am a big San Francisco Giants fan, and a fan of baseball in general . . . . Last year, I ordered a specialty license plate for my car, a 1994 Volkswagen Jetta, which reads "GNU LNUX" (and you can see it here: http://larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com/2007/08/17/wearing-your-loyalties-on-your-bumper/ ) . . . My daughter Mirano is one of the Linux Chicks who ran around SCaLE expo floor singing with her cohorts about Fedora.