[FreeGeek] Welcome - intros

[sim]

Hello everyone,

My name is Simeon Veldstra. I met many of you last night at the
initial meeting. By day, I'm a construction foreman. I participate in
what is essentially a high speed geologic process by organizing the
transportation of quantities of earth around the Vancouver area.

I'm just a bit younger than the personal computer and have been around
them all my life.I've been writing programs for as long as I can
remember. I've been paid to write software, but I've never worked as a
programmer.

I remember, as a boy, bugging my parents to buy me a C compiler. I had
outgrown gwbasic and wanted to learn a real language. The tools back
then were very limited, both in power and accessibility.

In the late nineties, I discovered the Free Software Foundation with
its General Public License and found out about Linux. Just out of high
school and on a limited budget, I was able to set up a few second hand
machines for myself with an OS that came with full build system
included. The philosophy of the FSF had a profound effect on me, I
chose Debian based on its constitution and principles (I will admit
that the first machine I actually used as a desktop was installed from
a Mandrake CD that came out of the back of a magazine) .

Free software has come so very far in the past decade. The resources
available to a kid interested in computers today are astounding. Free
software is past the point of acceptance and is making progress in
leaps and bounds.

I've known David Repa for many years. Dave was the first person I
introduced to Debian. Over the years we have built Debian systems for
many of our friends at little to no cost.  I've had the pleasure of
seeing people with a wide range of skill and interest have successful
experiences with open source.

Some people like to drink beer and watch hockey. We are more likely to
be found opening our beers with an old floppy drive while waiting for
apt-get to retrieve packages.

When Dave returned from Portland recently and told me about this place
he had found, I got excited. This Freegeek place seemed to be an
organization that had as its objective what we had for our hobby. We
have been taking about it nonstop all month.

Dave is a hardware guy. From his experience in the scrap industry he
has an intuitive understanding of the logistics behind reducing a
stream of waste to its recyclable constituents.  I'm confident that he
will be able to bring Freegeek Vancouver to the point of self
sufficiency.

As a software guy, I'm excited about the power found in further
abstraction. By teaching Dave how to install Debian, I was able to
decrease my workload, while increasing the total number of machines
created.  Spending energy on helping to get Freegeek started will
result in many more systems built. Teaching people how to teach people
makes a bigger difference.

My personal interest lies in increasing the free code base. With that
goal in mind, I see tremendous leverage in Freegeek. Chasing the
abstraction further, beyond lumps of plastic and metal, I see Freegeek
as a place that incubates hackers. A place where people become excited
about free software and are provided with the resources to use it.
Some of those people may progress to creating free software. If my
energy can go towards creating new programmers, I'll never match the
potential production by simply writing code myself instead.

I would like to volunteer myself for the board of directors. I have
quite a bit on my plate right now and can't commit definite, regular
periods of time, but I will give as much time and provide David with
as much support as I can; this is  a very exciting idea.

The first thing I'm interested in working on is putting together a
presentation that we can take out on the road to spread the word and
solicit support.


-- 
sim