"I have raised consciousness about the problems that software patents present for open source, enough to goad some people into action. There are other things like software I wrote and released, books published in my series with Prentice Hall, and the various open-source projects and companies working with open source that I've advised."

Newly elected secretary, Neil McGovern, one of the founding members of OpenVAS, a open-source fork of the security scanner Nessus, said his main goal for SPI is to achieve a greater degree of involvement from its member projects, and the community in general.

"At the latest count, we have 10 member projects, with more than 1500 members. However, we have only around 350 contributing members of SPI. I believe that we should try to expand SPI's membership base and encourage a greater participation from our membership."

Perens bio (http://perens.com/Bio.html) reveals he has been involved in open source for some time. He is the co-founder of the advocacy group, the Open Source Initiative. He also famously made headlines in 2002 when he was "terminated' from his Linux and open-source strategist role at Hewlett-Packard. Perens disagreed with the direction HP was taking on its Linux platform when it merged with Compaq.