“The first few minutes of the Linux meeting, held in a small
room behind a coffee house, were awkward.”
“After all, these geeks weren’t used to being surrounded by so
many women. In fact, most of them worked in settings almost
completely dominated by men. A few settled into a dingy couch that
looked as if it had been white at one time, others crouched in any
space they could find on the floor. Some sat up in stiff plastic
chairs pulled together in a semicircle. Then, without fanfare, the
inaugural meeting of the Bay Area chapter of LinuxChix commenced —
and a dozen she-geeks confessed their love for Linux…”
“LinuxChix is the brainchild of Deb Richardson, a technical
writer and Webmaster at The Puffin Group, an open source consulting
firm. The group, which started as a mailing list last spring, has
gradually evolved into eight chapters that meet face-to-face in
locales that range from San Francisco to Dublin, Ireland, to
Melbourne, Australia.
“I knew there were other women out there who use Linux, but
they’re really hard to find,” Richardson said, speaking to
ZDNN via telephone from her office in Canada. “This was a way to
get them together.”