Name: Mark Bainter
Homepage:
SMGL Page: None yet
IRC Nick(s): Shamgar
Role in SMGL: Backup Admin for SMGL servers and spell updates primarily right now. I'm also working on integrating better support for native EFI booting and EVMS
Age: 33
Location/Country: TX/USA
When did you first start using Linux and why? Hrm. I'm really not sure. Somewhere mid to late 1990s. I had been working as a sysadmin for a commercial Unix distribution and thanks to the prejudice of those I worked with largely avoided it for some time as a 'wanna-be Unix'. Jeremy and I wanted to run some services, and he convinced me to give it a chance. I never looked back.
How long have you been using the SMGL distribution? Depends on your definition of 'use' I suppose. For the purposes of this page lets say roughly Jan 2007.
What piqued your interest in SMGL initially? The theme, followed by the mutt spell Jeremy was showing to everyone he could convince to sit still long enough. I had made an interesting progression of distributions by that point. Roughly, IIRC, RedHat -> Mandrake -> Stampede -> Slackware -> RockLinux -> From Scratch -> Gentoo, and I was really happy with Gentoo, even in spite of their use of Python for the system utilities. I'd been in that project early enough to actually be able to participate a little. Then I got busy, looked up, and there were a bunch of kids asking for graphical installers everywhere. Not to mention the population of debian "look at me, I'm l33t because of the distribution I run" refugees.
I wasn't really ready to give up Gentoo though, since I had my own custom install CD that I used for everything, and pretty much ignored most of what they did from then on out on that front. Jeremy is persuasive though, and we began running some of the boxes we admin together on Sourcemage. From there it was all downhill. I'd say the primary reasons I'm really here are the fact that the distro is source-based, flexible, and still young enough to be malleable. I have hope that it will remain a sysadmins distribution and not get subsumed under a deluge of fanboys.
What future do you personally see for SMGL? I don't know that I have any big plans for it. It'd be a little presumptuous I think. Mostly I just want to see it not get caught up in some foolish desire to win the most ignorant users possible, or make sure aunt edna can use it. It's not elitism to say "I want the distribution I use to do the right thing, and give me the flexibility to do what I want" even if that means you have to be willing to invest a little time and effort (and yes, even brainpower) to use it. Immediate goals though are an install process w/out an installer as an optional alternative, EVMS support on the ISO(s), documentation/changes to support booting from EFI more easily, and a better init system (launchd?). Oh yeah, and fixing PAM.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Education/Career/Skills? Autodidact - I relearned pretty much everything I was ever taught and learned it better (and right) that way. So I've pretty much dismissed most if not all the schooling I've had as irrelevant. I'm currently the Manager of Global Email Operations for Match.com, managing a team of sysadmins and the expanse of systems we use to keep people meeting each other. Skillwise - well, how about I just say yes. I've at least dabbled in just about everything.
Any personal messages for the Source Mage users out there? Maybe just to stick with it. It can take awhile to get to a point of understanding the value of doing things this way. I'm encouraged though that there are more people who are beginning to understand this. I've had discussions with Vendors lately (like Splunk for example) who are even beginning to understand the value of providing a tool that does things really well, but with lots of flexibility so that admins can make it work they way they do rather than them having to work the way the tool does.
vi or emacs? Vi. Emacs makes a computer slow.
KDE or GNOME? Is this a deserted island question? Personally wmii or Enlightenment. Primarily the former lately. When all your windows except your web browser are Eterms the larger "environments" seem kinda pointless. If those are my only two options though, KDE no question. If I was going to run Gnome I'd just install WindowsME and be done with it.
BSD or GPL? Frankly I don't care that much. I personally prefer BSD license for my work, but it's up to the guy who wrote it what license they want to use. Though I will say every time a new version of the GPL comes out, or Stallman opens his mouth I like the BSD license a little more.
What other OS programs/software have you worked on? Enlightenment, a now defunct linux distribution, and ugh - lots of patches for various applications. I can't even begin to remember them all so I won't try.
Do you have any family? Yes. (Wife and four kids)
What other hobbies? ... Other? ... 
Yeah, I do some woodworking, love to read (political science, history, theology/Apologetics, SciFi/Fantasy, Classical literature). Learning other languages (studying Koine Greek and Japanese off and on right now. I'm hoping one day I'll be able to collect them like I have programming languages), paintballing (on the rare occasion I get to go), guns, and electronics. (The last is on a cycle that comes every year or so when I get a sudden creative urge to wire up something.)
What kind of car do you drive? Or what is your dream car? I drive a Neon right now. Small, fairly quick, reliable, gets me to work and back. I don't know that I have a dream car. Maybe a Delorean. I used to want a 1967 Karmann Ghia convertible. Bad. That desire has passed though, I just don't have the time or inclination to work on cars anymore.
Please attach a recent photograph of yourself - if you're brave enough ;=) I'll do this later, too much effort right now.