Hi, I'm an attorney in San Francisco (SF) who uses SuSE Linux 8.2 Pro and Open Office.org in his personal injury and bankruptcy practice. I tell you that as a background which reasons which will become important in a second. I have contacted several candidates for mayor of SF. I have given them boxes with SuSE Linux pro 8.2 with Open Office.org 1.1 Release Candidate 2 as office suite programs. The mayoral candidates to whom I have given computers like Linux and would like to get more Linux boxes. They are not representing the rich rich richies in our society, and so they need grassroots support. If you are in the SF Bay Area, and have an old box with at least 128 MB of RAM, and would like to give it away, please feel free to contact me at 415 351 1300. It is not tax-deductible, unfortunately, but it is for a good cause. If we can get the attention of these mayoral candidates, then we have a better chance of getting SF to go open source. If we can get SF to go open source, MS will have a cow and Linux will grow rapidly, as it will get more national press.

Also, you all have heard about the wacko California governor recall. The rich rich richies are trying to throw out a fairly elected governor and replace him with a millionaire who will only care about other millionaires. One of the candidates for the governor has excpressed an interest in using Linux. Again, this is not a rich person, but this person is in a position to start a dialogue on using Linux in the California government. Any help with a box would be appreciated. If you phone me privately, I will tell you the names of these candidates, as long as you are not a Republican, don't work for a Republican campaign. If you are press, any personal info about the candidates will please have to be off the record.

If you consider yourself to be rich, sorry to sound like I am against the wealthy, but you have already gotten what you need. Now is the time to help the rest of us.

To get an idea of what these candidates are like, let me just say this: after representing clients who get crushed by big insurance companies and big credit card companies, I know that the rich do not need any more help. The candidates I am supporting help the average Joe. I consider myself to be an average Joe (I don't make tons of money) and I consider most of the people on lists like this are probably the average Joe. So helping these candidates will ultimately help us help ourselves. Thanks for your interest!