An SPI board meeting (http://www.spi-inc.org/news-items/new-spi-board-of-directors-and-officers.html/) on 1 August, saw Bdale Garbee elected as president, with Michael Schultheiss voted as vice president, Neil McGovern as secretary and Josh Berkus as treasurer of the board.

Members to lose their seats were John Goerzen and Benjamin Mako Hill.

Perens, who like Garbee, was once a former Debian GNU/Linux project leader, cited his busy schedule as a contributor to losing the support of other members of the board.

"I didn't have time to attend board meetings. People got annoyed because sometimes the board didn't have enough people attending to make quorum," he said.

"SPI and Debian are something I feel strongly about, but don't really have time for any longer as there are more important fights to be carried out for Open Source," he added.