Self introduction: Lamar Owen

[Lamar Owen]

[Since everyone else seems to be doing this, I'll go along....Just, if you 
reply to this message for some subtopic of the message PLEASE CHANGE THE 
SUBJECT (there have already be a handful of threads that discuss substantial 
technical issues that are threaded 'Re: Self Introduction.....').  This is a 
repost of my introduction to Fedora-Devel, with minor edits.]

While I have been contributing to Red Hat's development (through maintenance 
of the PostgreSQL RPMset) for some years now, I'll go ahead with the self 
intro as requested on the fedora.us site.

Lamar Randall Owen
USA, Rosman, NC
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astonomical Research Institute

I currently maintain the community packages for PostgreSQL, as well as 
building packages for other programs, including the SWORD project and 
BibleTime (Bible software for KDE using the SWORD libraries and modules).  
While I do some QA testing now, I am mostly interested in making the Fedora 
PostgreSQL packages the best they can be.

For Fedora Legacy, I should note that my community packages for the latest 
PostgreSQL are routinely being built on Red Hat 6.2, 7.3, 8.0, 9, AS2.1, and 
RHEL3, as well as FC1.  The latest RPM isn't yet available for RHL9 due to 
lack of a build host, and I am in process of building it on RHL8.0.  I 
distribute binaries for all of those, as well as Aurora 1.0, a SPARCed RHL 
7.3.  Upgrading to the latest and greatest from previous versions can be 
mighty painful; however, if a security issue occurs in the versions 
distributed with the EOLd distribution, backporting security fixes to more 
than one major previous version is not going to be priority for the 
PostgreSQL core developers.  Red Hat 6.2, for instance, shipped with 
PostgreSQL 6.5.3.  This is a positively archaic version of PostgreSQL, with 
the current version being 7.4.1.  Versions prior to 7.3.5 are not likely to 
be supported upstream at all; the EOLd distributions are all prior to that.  
Since AS 2.1 is still supported, source RPMs for it could be rebuilt on at 
least RHL 7.3, and maybe even 8.0.  RHEL3 source RPM errata could be rebuilt 
on RHL9 without much problem.  

Historical Qualifications.
Over four years maintaining the PostgreSQL RPMs and contributing to 
discussions there and on the RPM list.  I've beta tested Red Hat for right at 
four years, since the 6.2 cycle.  I have programmed in numerous languages 
over the years: see my sourceforge profile (user lowen).  I maintain the 
postgresql database driver for the AOLserver project.  Red Hat trusts me (Red 
Hat 6.1 shipped with rebuilt versions of my PostgreSQL packages, and they 
have been the base packages ever since, even though RH has their own internal 
maintainer (currently Tom Lane,  previously David Jee and before that Andrew 
Overholt, and before him Trond Eivind Glomsrød)), so I guess you should too. 
:-)

Key fingerprint (fresh key, as I've not used one before for public 
consumption (except in my post to Fedora Devel)):
pub  1024D/25C6AF5B 2003-12-04 Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu>
     Key fingerprint = 3142 7AB1 F9AA 5D14 BBB3  FC4A 073D 25BA 25C6 AF5B
sub  2048g/C1F9E9DA 2003-12-04

I guess I'll begin signing the PostgreSQL RPM's at ftp.postgresql.org; they 
haven't previously been signed.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu