Hello Fedora Docs Project!

My name is Tom Deering, and I am a senior in Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. In two years I will have my masters degree in the Software Systems field of CprE. I have always been infatuated with Linux and open source software; however, about two months ago I made the permanent switch to Fedora 12 and fell in love! I am seeking a way to give back to the great project that has given so much to me.

I also enjoy programming; I have extensive C and Java experience.  While I feel I would be a natural fit for an OS developer position as well, I feel that documentation is potentially where I can do the most good, at least initially. In my opinion, documentation and user-friendliness is what it is going to take to increase the popularity of any Linux distribution. Since this is my first step as a contributor to an open source project, documentation may also be an easier transition than diving into coding right away.

I have always been an excellent writer. I have had three English classes while at ISU, including a technical writing class. I have had to write many lab reports, instruction sets, technical documents, etc. I feel that I could bring these strengths to the Docs Project.

Since I do not know where I may be needed, I would appreciate feedback from interested groups. Meanwhile I have joined the docs and docs-commits mailing lists so I can begin learning your task flow.  My GPG fingerprint is below. Please let me know if there are any other steps I need to take to join the community. I look forward to working with all of you!

[root@tom-pc Downloads]# gpg --fingerprint 64455EA2
pub   4096R/F0B5BB51 2010-04-05 Tom Deering (Fedora Contributor) <tomdeering7@gmail.com>
Key fingerprint = 0877 EB2A 853B FBCF 16EC  0175 D4C9 9608 F0B5 BB51              
sub   4096R/64455EA2 2010-04-05

Regards,

Tom Deering
Senior, Computer Engineering
Iowa State University