"It's got to be brought about by open-source developers or the Free Software Foundation" open-source advocacy group, he said. "We need people who can sincerely sing the tune of the developers and users."

Such a PAC would be important as local, state and national governments and leaders continue to discuss technology issues, from open standards to document file formats to software patent law, he said.

"All of the problems that open-source faces are also the problems of all software companies" with less than 1,000 employees, he said. "Open-source shares the problems of these folks if they're in the software business.

"Look at what we've achieved so far," Perens said. "We've just done such amazing things and not so long ago people told us it was impossible, but we've pulled it off."