Linux Users' Group of Davis

Linux Users' Group of Davis (commonly known as LUGOD) is a users' group of students and faculty from the University of California, Davis, Information technology professionals from the Sacramento region, and hobbyists interested in Linux and free and open-source software. It holds regular meetings in Davis, California, and holds installfests on a regular basis. Its members participate with each other online in numerous mailing lists and via Internet Relay Chat.



History
The group was founded in early 1999 by Peter J. Salzman, Bill Kendrick, and about a dozen others, following a USENET posting in which Peter asked whether such a group existed in the Davis area. (Salzman and Kendrick held posts as president and vice president for most of the first five years of the group's existence.)

Activities
When possible, LUGOD participates in many activities, including hands-on demos, exhibit booths at events such as LinuxWorld Expo, classes, fundraisers, and organizing the formerly annual Linux picnic in Sunnyvale, California, together with other SVLUG and other groups.

"Reasons to Avoid Microsoft"
The LUG's website maintains a collection of news articles meant to help convince users to switch from Microsoft products. Eric S. Raymond linked to this collection in his famous response to Microsoft's eighth Halloween document.

Notable speakers
Despite its distance from the Silicon Valley, numerous notable speakers have presented at LUGOD, including:

Individuals

 * Jeremy Allison
 * David Anderson of the SETI@home project
 * Donald Becker of Scyld Computer Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Penguin Computing
 * Steve Coast (founder of OpenStreetMap)
 * Chris DiBona
 * Asa Dotzler of Mozilla Foundation
 * Christian Einfeldt (producer of The Digital Tipping Point)
 * Jon "maddog" Hall
 * Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler (creator of Enlightenment)
 * Leslie Hawthorn (Open Source Project Manager at Google)
 * Valerie Henson
 * Simon Horman
 * Chander Kant of LinuxCertified
 * Bill Kendrick (creator of Tux Paint)
 * Sam Lantinga (creator of Simple DirectMedia Layer)
 * Rasmus Lerdorf
 * Don Marti of LinuxJournal
 * Norman Matloff
 * Patrick McGovern of SourceForge
 * Sean Perry of Debian
 * Dave Peticolas
 * Kyle Rankin
 * Hans Reiser
 * Greg Roelofs from PNG
 * Lawrence Rosen of Open Source Initiative
 * Bill Saphir from Lawrence Berkeley Labs
 * Richard Wallace of the A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Foundation

Organizations and companies

 * Apple Computer
 * AMD
 * Borland
 * Cisco Systems
 * CodeWeavers (creators of CrossOver)
 * Electronic Frontier Foundation
 * Embedded Linux Consortium
 * Encore Technologies (creator of the Simputer)
 * Google
 * gumstix
 * Hitachi
 * Hewlett-Packard
 * IBM
 * Ingres
 * LynuxWorks
 * No Starch Press
 * Oracle Corporation
 * Silicon Graphics
 * Slim Devices
 * Sony Computer Entertainment
 * Sybase
 * SpectSoft
 * VA Linux