Bruce Perens Voted off SPI Board

An anonymous reader writes "ComputerWorld is reporting that open source evangelist Bruce Perens has been ousted from the board of Software in the Public Interest. Even though he founded the organization he said it was time to move on, stating that he probably shouldn't have run but just couldn't let it go. It seems that for the time being Perens in content to focus on the truly important things, like watching his son grow and making time for his family. I just hope that he isn't gone for too long."

Comments

Miswording

[dshaw858]

It sounds like he was forcefully ejected from his own board, but the story leads me to believe that this is what he wanted- even the slashdot summary states that he had said it was "time to go" and that he wanted more time with his family and son... so why was he 'ousted'? Or perhaps I'm simply reading something wrong...

Re:Miswording

[retrosteve]

Could actually be a bit of both. Running for a position when your heart isn't in it can lead to losing that position. Or getting booted off your own board can help you see that you really haven't been prioritizing it.

Re:Miswording

[Anonymous Coward]

'ousted' is almost certainly the wrong word, it implies he was kicked out, whereas in fact the article shows that essentially he was simply not re-elected at a normal set of elections, and that he understands why, and thinks he probably shouldn't have stood in the first place...

Re:Miswording

[portmapper]

> It sounds like he was forcefully ejected from his own board, but the story leads me to believe that this is what he wanted-

"forcefully ejected"? He was not re-elected.

Re:Miswording

[lxs]

Well, looking at the attendance records (which were posted with the election announcement, I can't seem to find them now), you'd see that he was absent from meetings very often, more than anyone else in fact, so I guess this solution is best for all involved.

Re:Miswording

[lxs]

here it is

Re:Miswording

[Bruce Perens]

I missed oh, 8 out of 12 board meetings due to being on airplanes (doing stuff for Open Source) and otherwise being busy. And that really pissed people off. I am working on things like the software patents issue and have prioritized that over stuff like SPI. Although I am spending time on my son and view that as my highest priority, I have not retired and am still working full-time. Half of my paid time for Sourcelabs is to work on Open Source issues of my own choice under my own direction. The other half is to work on Open Source issues for Sourcelabs customers.

I think working full-time on Open Source issues of my own choice may be in my future. I'm not sure when, but am reasonably sure I could get that funded now.

Bruce

Re:Miswording

[Hope Thelps]

I missed oh, 8 out of 12 board meetings due to being on airplanes (doing stuff for Open Source) and otherwise being busy. And that really pissed people off.

That shouldn't piss people off but it is a good reason to not re-elect you. It's better that someone with the time to attend the meetings is on the Board (provided that they are also otherwise suited to the position). That in no way denigrates the other things you do with your time.

Re:Miswording

[Bruce Perens]

It's lucky that I was in the right time zone and not in a meeting where I would not be able to do this or away from good net access. I don't catch stories like this every time. But you are all welcome to email me (bruce at perens dot com) if there's anything you think I should look at. Usually I'm able to write back. Once in a while I miss a message, it's OK to send a repeat to get my attention.

Bruce

Re:Miswording

[Russ Nelson]

The problem wasn't that he missed the meetings. OSI has a policy that if you miss two meetings in a row without excuse, you can be removed from the board. You can MISS all the meetings you want, but you have to say why. SPI has a similar policy, and Bruce didn't follow it.

But more than that, Bruce made his election a referendum on changing SPI's role from organizing other projects to the role of an activist position against software patents. It's understandable that Bruce wants some place to stand to push his (our) agenda, but the SPI membership decided that the SPI board was not that place. I encouraged Bruce to start up a project underneath SPI, which advice he is yet to take.

The real question

[Error27]

Here's a link with election info. Here are the election results.

But for me the real question is whether it is time for a magnetic floating bed?

TFA explains it

[Morgaine]

if this guy is most famous (hey, I'm paraphrasing TFA) for getting fired, then what's his next move?

Well if you'd bothered to post the sentence that followed in TF article, it would have explained a lot and destroyed the basis of your argument:

>> Perens disagreed with the direction HP was taking on its Linux platform when it merged with Compaq.

A company that fires you when you disagree with them is most emphatically a company that you no longer want to work for.

Bruce has principles and doesn't toe the company line when it seems wrong. In my book, that's a good thing.

What is SPI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone give a short description of SPI? How is it different from other similar organisations? What does it do that these organisations don't?

Re:You're Fired! (an ego problem?)

[Bruce Perens]

SPI and Debian have always been a home of personalities and strongly-held opinions, and I have no shortage of either :-) . But for me, this was really a matter of where I can and can't put my time. Raising my son is #1. After that, there's the most important issues of Open Source at the moment - and I judge the software patenting problem to be the biggest of those right now. SPI and Debian, unfortunately, are lower on my list. So, no, I should not have run.

Ever hear me on the air? Not much time for ham radio right now, either. I made it to Dayton and turned down a position on the TAPR board. So much to do, so little Bruce. Sigh.

Re:You're Fired!

[Bruce Perens]

if this guy is most famous (hey, I'm paraphrasing TFA) for getting fired, then what's his next move?

Hm. Perhaps I should be deported or something :-) Maybe tried for treason. I'll think of something :-)

It's somewhat frustrating that internal conflict of Open Source always makes more news than the outward-facing work that I'm doing. There have been much more important issues that I was unable to get Slashdot to cover.

Bruce

No more comments from Bruce, please

[dkone]

How am I supposed to hear rampant rumor and speculation when the subject of the story is posting the truth? This is Slashdot after all; there is a tradition to uphold here people.

I for one welcome our... ahh never mind that won't work here.

DK

Re:No more comments from Bruce, please

[Bruce Perens]

You're also welcome to call me at 510-375-0820 if you want more truth! I am in Norway at the moment, so watch the time zone. That's a GSM phone, Sourcelabs will pick up the bill.

How the hell can rumours spread when the darned subject PUBLISHES HIS PHONE NUMBER ON THE INTERNET. This is no fun at all! :-)

FYI:

10 times as many people are willing to converse with me on slashdot as to send me an email.
10 times as many people are willing to email me as call on the phone.
So, the phone calls end up being managable. This is a social phenomenon worthy of study. Something about the relative intimacy of various forms of communication and willingness to engage in them.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:You're Fired!

[Bruce Perens]

IT's NOT NEWS (and much other justified ranting)

I guess it's a human-interest story.

I have this self-imposed job of helping to ease the future course of Open Source by attempting to solve problems in its way like the software patent issue. A big part of that is being an "opinion leader", which is writing stuff that other people read and, hopefully, agree with. Getting attention for such stuff means courting the press like Computerworld (which did not create the cited article but is carrying a LinuxWorld Online story) and Slashdot. The press is capricious. They don't cover what I want them to cover. They must be pandered to and babied, cajoled, you get the picture. Being a notable person whom they will recognize and cover - regardless of the content - is something you have to do just to get the real issues covered. That doesn't mean we have to like it.

Thanks

Bruce

The code, the code!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but the code is more important than watching some bag of meat grow up.

Mod parent down!

[capt.Hij]

Okay, this is obvisouly the worst kind of karma whoring possible. How about we take Bruce's highest moderated replies and we all post our own questions?

"Slashdot for Grown-Ups"?? Zing! Pow! Wham!

[RobotRunAmok]

From the site linked in Bruce Perens' sig:

Another of our roots is a similar site called Slashdot.org . Slashdot played a formative role as the community voice of Open Source / Free Software during a time of tremendous growth in that community. Unfortunately, Slashdot has more recently abdicated that role to become, in the words of its editors, "a geek culture site". We recognise the lure of the mass-market. As we write this, Slashdot is within the top 300 sites on the web by readership, and we congratulate them. But the serious work is going to need to go on elsewhere. We're taking up that flag.

Another issue with Slashdot is immaturity. It's rife with trolls and other detriments to the signal-to-noise ratio. We start out on a path to improve the level of discussion over that in Slashdot by eschewing the "Anonymous Coward" who is rampant there. If you don't want to take responsibility for your words, they don't belong here. We encourage you to put your full name in your login, and participate in all discussion as a known individual. We will take other measures to maintain the highest possible quality of discussion as they become necessary.

So, whaddya saying, no ACs and if I want to read about Joss Whedon's grocery list I'll have to call his press agent?

I am *SO* there, Bruce! Congratulations!

(But do you kinda sorta think that your new competitive venture against slashdot is why your own dirty laundry got posted here by an AC? I'm just askin'...)

Dead

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I think they just kicked him off the board because he's dead.

Rich.

Re:"Slashdot for Grown-Ups"?? Zing! Pow! Wham!

[Bruce Perens]

(But do you kinda sorta think that your new competitive venture against slashdot is why your own dirty laundry got posted here by an AC? I'm just askin'...)

I don't know. Technocrat.net is still very small potatoes next to Slashdot. Makes about $10 a day on google ads, which I pay to Zogger, the only paid editor. I doubt the Slashdot operators would mind a bit. But I do find that stuff I submit is less likely to run than links to stuff I submitted to other sites which are then submitted to Slashdot by third parties. You would think that Slashdot would like to get the news from the horses's mouth rather than some other part of the horse :-) One of the editors explained to me once that they do defensive postings, which means that they get so many people submitting the same article that they post it just to get them to shut up, but they really did not want to run that story at all. Maybe that's what happened this time. Interesting the effect that the internet has on editorial policy.

Bruce

If I called you on the phone I'd say

[Progman3K]

Good luck to you.
You're an inspiration to many.

By the way, I have a buddy who was up until very recently working in Montreal for a fairly big hardware/software firm. His wife got offered a job with Cisco in the US (South Carolina) and they (plus their two children) decided to move.

This meant (for him) abandonning his well-paying, well-established job.
I asked him what he planned to do for a job down in Raleigh, he answered "Take care of the kids"
"What?"
"Yup, that's it, that's all. I've been too busy with a million activities" he went on "I want to take care of my kids"
I thought about for a second, smiled and said "Those kids will be luckier than most"

Re:If I called you on the phone I'd say

[Bruce Perens]

Thanks! Valerie (my wife) and Stanley (my 6-year-old son) are here in Norway with me. I am teaching about Open Source at HiA (Agder University College) in Grimstad, but the main reason for the trip is so that Stanley can live in another country for three weeks and see that the way we do things in the U.S. is not the only way. I am very, very lucky to be able to do this. It's all because I gave away my software and talked about it! Everything that I've given away has come back 10 times over.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:As someone who was there

[budgenator]

yeah so what's your point, when your out there doing things, there is a tendency to offend people who are out there talking about doing things. If the organisation was founded to push an agenda and the agenda get taken over by a bunch of mamby-pamby soccer-mom types who just want everyone to get along; sometimes the passion gets lost. Linus pisses people off, RMS pisses people off a lot of people pisses people off, I'd rather be around people that piss me off, they're usualy the honest ones.
Parent posts under his name, Parens posts his Email address, Parens post his freaken cellphone number, you post Anonymous Coward.