[DC LoCo] PC Retro and the People's Nuclear Free Republic of Takoma Park

[Kevin Cole]

Hi boys and girls,

I'm a bit tipsy from my own Hanukkah miracle: I only had enough midnight
oil for one long night, but it has burned for several. ;-)

The skinny: This morning, social butterfly (or is that gadfly) Phil Shapiro
organized a meeting between Chris Scott, the latest driving force behind PC
Retro, Takoma Park city councilmember Dan Robinson, yours truly, and
himself.  Seems there's a harmonic convergence going on. PC Retro under
Chris's management is gonna give Ubuntu a more serious push, and Dan has a
long and checkered history in the computer biz and now in addition to doing
the city council gig is the landlord of a co-op that houses the PC
consulting company he founded in 1985 and "left" in 2004. Dan is getting
going with an Ubuntu server, after getting his chops with Ubuntu desktop.
(He may be seeking help w/ Postfix/Dovecot stuff soon.) Both Chris and Dan
are in the "Let's do well by doing good," camp.  Phil (in case you haven't
read him saying it himself) is all about bridging the digital divide, with
a particular focus on what I'll half-jokingly refer to as "home schooling"
-- putting computers with educational stuff in the hands of low-income
and/or immigrant families, as well as building some sort of online
repository of educational material developed by local communities.

Anyway, we all walked away after about 90 minutes of chit-chat with a
couple of ideas that boil down to scratching each other's backs.  I won't
say more than that, because nothing's really definite, but I think we'll
all be in touch, and I handed Chris a small stack of CD's...

Stay tuned. ;-)