Slashdot Mirror
Martin Schulze Steps Down As SPI Vice President
Tina Gasperson reports on NewsForge that Martin Schulze, Vice President of Software in the Public Interest, is resigning his position there to protest the lack of time he says fellow SPI higher-ups are devoting to the organization. Since SPI serves as a coordinating body for several large-scale Free software projects (like GNOME and OpenOffice.org), discord there should concern a lot of people. Update: 11/26 03:14 GMT by T : That should read "OpenSource.org," not "OpenOffice.org." Sorry.
Citing frustration over the operations of Software in the Public Interest, its Vice President Martin Schulze gave an ultimatum: either the President, Secretary, and one of the board of directors resigns, or he does. Guess who's leaving? Schulze asked Nils Lohner, president; Wichert Akkerman, secretary, and Ian Jackson of the B.O.D. to step down because he felt they weren't dedicating enough time and effort to their positions. "All three of them have shown in the past that they are able to give valuable input to various issues. However, all three have also shown that they are too busy to work on the tasks they signed up once. Hence, they should resign and let less busy people to the work instead," he wrote in a petition to the SPI membership.
"I don't see how SPI can work properly without a functioning Secretary and Board members who are too busy to make it even to the meetings. If those people wish to work on SPI matters and if their input is valuable, they should rather act as formal advisor, so SPI doesn't suffer from their overload but can benefit from their input," he added.
"In our current situation, with the currently assembled Board of Directors, with too many too busy Board members who are permanently not able to attend IRC Board meetings, join discussions and votes via mail and - from my perspective - a non-functioning Secretary with too many pending issues and problems writing and correcting minutes etc., I don't see a chance for SPI to work as our members and affiliated projects deserve.
"I believe that the Board requires a large change and that these members need to free their position so new people with more time and enthusiasm can join the Board and work on behalf of SPI."
Schulze wrote that, of the three he asked to resign, only Nils Lohner responded - and according to Schulze he has agreed to step down from his position as president. "Nils Lohner told the Board half a year ago that he will be absent for half a year. Once he was back, he let us know that he intends to resign since his new work environment did not leave enough room for SPI and he would not be able to act a Board member accordingly. Neither Wichert nor Ian even raised a word," says Schulze.
Barring voluntary resignations, Schulze noted article seven of the SPI by-laws, which provides for the forced removal of a director when "sufficient causes exist for such removal."
But ultimately, Schulze decided to remove himself from the situation, rather than pursue the matter further. "I hereby step down as vice president of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. I have announced the intention to step more than two weeks ago, and I also asked for help about a week later with no responses," he announced.
Software in the Public Interest, Inc., was established as a non-profit in 1997 and acts as an umbrella for Free Software projects such as Debian, GNOME, and OpenSource.org. The last published minutes are from a July 2002 board meeting, when the group officially approved GNU Texmacs as a sponsored project. At that meeting they also turned down Bruce Perens' request for the organization to get on board with his Sincer Choice initiative, because of its claim "We support a broad range of copyright policies, from Public Domain through Open Source and Free Software to Proprietary." SPI board members stated that it is a Free Software organization and does not agree with any policy that supports proprietary software.
Since Schulze's resignation on Sunday, 19-year-old Debian developer Jimmy Kaplowitz threw his hat into the ring, stating "Right now, SPI membership means very little other than a subscription to spi-private. We should involve the members, so that we can receive their input and ideas. This would involve more use of the public and members-only mailing lists, wherever it wouldn't violate confidentiality. I am thinking now of Nils Lohner's message to spi-general when membership was first introduced, and we need to again ask the members what they want the board to be doing.
"I would be honored to serve as an SPI board member, and I hope that I am given the chance."
Debian is a registered trademark of Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
For geeks of a certain age and background (myself included), the acronym "SPI" stood for Simulations Publications Inc., a fairly important wargame publisher whose prime was the 1980s. They concentrated on historical wargames, though I did once own their WWIII in Northern Europe game, The Next War, which was massive and retailed for $30-50 in 1980s money! They also had a D&D knockoff called DragonQuest, and a bi-monthly magazine, Strategy & Tactics, which included a complete wargame in every issue!
IIRC (and if not, this being Slashdot, I'm sure someone will correct me), they were bought out by Avalon Hill, which in turn was bought out by TSR, which in turn was bought out by Wizards of the Coast, which in turn was bought out by Hasbro.
Anyone who remembers the original SPI now has permission to feel very. very old...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Martin "Joey" Schulze deserves our sincere gratitude for all the hard work he has put into Software in the Public Interest and all of its member projects as the organisations Vice President. As the Vice President he effectively ran SPI for months in the absence of the President and I have had opportunity to work with him since this summer in his capacity as vp of SPI. I can assure you all that he is a very dedicated and principled individual and he would not leave his post if he did not feel that it was in the best interests of SPI.
Remember that being a board member of SPI is not a paid position. Not even an honourarium comes with the role. It is a serious time commitment and not everyone has the time necessary to commit to such endeavours.
I'd like to point out that Joey has not resigned from SPI's board, but only as the Vice President. He has not indicated he will dedicate any less time to the project, nor has he given up on its success. He is offering the opportunity for someone else to carry the torch.
For my part, I'd like to say:
Joey, you're an asset to the community and I look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you.
David "cdlu" Graham
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Bruce
Bruce Perens.