DeedraWaters
From OSLUG Wiki
Deedra Waters(dmwaters),the Operational Lead for Developer Relations, itinerant recruiter, organization Trustee, manager of Gentoo's mail infrastructure and Lead for Gentoo's Accessibility project. Deedra is also a senior staff member for the freenode IRC network, and is in the process of moving from Florida to a new job in the Open Source lab at Oregon State University, where she will be enrolling as a student this Fall.
Deedra's primary duties include identifying and recruiting new developers for the project, ensuring that developers have the resources and communication channels they need, and helping resolve any conflicts that arise. As a member of Gentoo's Board of Trustees, she is currently helping with copyright assignment and other legal niceties that are required for the smooth running of a non-commercial distro. For the accessibility project, she helps co-ordinate the identification and importation of accessibility software for handicapped Gentoo users, such as software packages for visually impaired users, or those who cannot use a standard keyboard. It is the latter endeavor that she is especially proud of having helped establish, characterizing it with the statement that "Linux is a wonderful thing for blind users for several reasons, and I think that Gentoo is the most accessible distro out there."
Deedra began using Linux with Debian in 2001, and was given a self-directed crash course when the friend who had installed it for her left the country. When Kurt Lieber introduced her to Gentoo (or, as she says, "bribed her to use it") last year, she switched over to using Gentoo. Shortly thereafter, she volunteered to help out, and began working on managing the mailing lists for the Infrastructure team, and later was named a Developer to assist with implementing accessibility features.
Some of our standard interview questions, such as "what Desktop Engine do you prefer?" were mooted by the fact that Deedra is totally blind - which many people who have encountered her online will be surprised to hear. This has affected her choice of favorite apps, which tend to be "best-of-breed" console apps such as mutt, pine, irssi, zinf, subversion and keychain. She uses SpeakUp for converting text to speech. She took a few moments to talk about people's reactions: "I'm totally blind, and have been since I was born.Some people feel sorry for me when they hear that, or feel bad for asking me questions about it, but it's one of those things that don't bother me. The way I explain it to people is a bit like 'I don't really care about not being able to see. I've never been able to, so I don't miss it.'" Which is enough about that.
