Platform for Michael Schultheiss

I am Michael Schultheiss, schultmc on IRC, and I am running for a position on the SPI Board of Directors.

I have been a Debian Developer since April 2002. I participated in the IA64 port and currently maintain a handful of packages, primarily web applications. I have used Debian since 2000 both personally and professionally.

I have been an SPI Contributing member since January 2003. In May 2005, I joined the SPI Membership Committee. I have attended several of the SPI board meetings over the past few years and have recently increased my participation in #spi. I serve on the Board of Directors for several non-profit organizations and am also interested in the Bylaws Committee.

In addition to Debian and SPI, I have contributed to the FLOSS community in two other areas:

  1. I've served on the Board of Directors of the Central Indiana Linux Users' Group (CINLUG) since March 2001 (March 2001-2002 and March 2003-Present as President, and March 2002-2003 as Vice-President). I have helped schedule and plan dozens of monthly presentations and helped organize our installfests and in-depth training sessions. Debian is often a key component in our training sessions.

  2. I'm on the core team of the Gallery project, an open source web based photo album organizer (http://gallery.menalto.com). I package Gallery for Debian and help out with documentation and user support.

I've participated in CINLUG's Application for Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and am also helping direct the discussions for the possible creation of the Gallery Software Foundation. I know first hand how time consuming the 501(c)(3) application process is and organizations should be very grateful that umbrella organizations like SPI exist so they can benefit from tax-exempt status without having to go through the tedious application process themselves.

SPI provides a great service to the FLOSS community. I look forward to SPI's future expansion as it welcomes new projects under the SPI umbrella. SPI's current activities as an umbrella organization are only a small portion of its authorized purposes listed in its Certificate of Incorporation. In addition to serving as an umbrella organization, SPI could also help the FLOSS community by expanding its activities to include other authorized purposes.

My past experience as President and Vice President of other non-profit organizations makes me a good fit for those offices in SPI should there be a vacancy. I am also interested in non-officership should the officers remain in office.