David Graham

My name is David Graham, known to many as cdlu.

I joined Software in the Public Interest when it accepted the Open and Free Technology Community as a member project. At the time, I was the Chair of the project, and together with David Harris wrote the project's constitution.

Since that time, our project has held 4 general elections and had 3 chairmen, and continues to function as a successful FOSS project under Software in the Public Interest's wings.

Outside of SPI, my involvement with the FOSS community includes 2 years as an OPN administrator from the end of 1999 to the end of 2001, and I have been working for OSDN as NewsForge's NewsVac editor for most of the time since the summer of 2000.

As a member of SPI, I have participated on the SPI By-Laws Revision Committee - which currently has proposals before the board achieved through the leadership of John Goerzen, attended nearly every board meeting for the last year, and participated and encouraged debate among the membership on the project's mailing lists and IRC channel.

I believe SPI's role is two-fold.

First and foremost is to be there for its largest and most successful project, Debian. Its job is to defend Debian in the event of lawsuits, and to protect its trademarks. Debian is SPI's backbone.

SPI is not, however, only Debian, and its other major role is to promote and defend other Free and Open Source Software and related projects, and to accommodate projects that require a legal umbrella organisation. Its mission statement asserts that SPI must also be involved in the promotion of and education about open source and open standards.

I am a believer in SPI, and a long time user of Debian (since pre-apt bo/1.3) and I would like an opportunity to serve on its board to help SPI accomplish its stated goals.