From Fedora Project Wiki

Larry Cafiero (lcafiero)

Lcmc21.jpg

About me

My name is Larry Cafiero. I'm 56, and I live in Felton (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. I am a former president and former secretary/treasurer of the Cabrillo College GNU/Linux Users Group and currently one of the organizers of the Felton Linux Users Group in Felton, California.

I consider myself a FOSS advocate 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 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.

While I am a Fedora user in the RDR lab, I also primarily use two other distros: Korora, a Fedora remix, and CrunchBang, which is based on Debian.

Duties in the Fedora Project

I do not currently have any duties in the Fedora Project. Formerly, I have done the following:

  • Documentation jockey (aka, doc jock)
  • Former member, Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo)
  • Former mentor, Fedora Ambassadors
  • Ambassador with portfolio

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.

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 each Fedora version 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 first 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 in 2009, and the Lindependence/SFD event in Felton took place on Sept. 19 at the Redwood Digital Research offices, 6116 Highway 9 in Felton.

Contact me

I can be reached at lcafiero-at-fedoraproject-dot-org or at larry-dot-cafiero-at-gmx-dot-com. My IRC handle is lcafiero and usually I can be found at the following IRC channels in FreeNode: #fedora-ambassadors, #korora, #lindependence. If you need to reach me immediately, I am at 1-831-335-4883 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

As mentioned above, 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.