Position statement for Tim Potter

Hello. I'm Tim Potter (tpot) and I've been part of the open source and free software community for nearly 20 years. I would like to run for a position on the SPI Board of Directors.

My free software contributions have been with Samba where I was a core team member for many years. I've also written code for the Wireshark (nee Ethereal) protocol analyser where I submitted many patches for various Microsoft protocols implemented by Samba. In addition I've done work on the OpenPegasus CIM/WBEM Manageability Services Broker and was a co-founder of the PyWBEM WBEM client module. Just this month I was accepted as a Debian Developer and am looking forward to giving back a small part of the value I've obtained from Debian over the years.

The SPI plays a vital role in the modern free software ecosystem which has changed greatly over the last few years. As one of only a few umbrella organisations available to free software projects, the financial and legal services provided by SPI significantly reduce overhead incurred by member projects allowing them to focus on writing code and developing the project.

I believe that there are still tasks related to running a free software project that can be outsourced to the SPI by member projects. If elected as a member of the SPI board, I would endeavour to continue the excellent work of the SPI under previous directors over the years, as well as investigating what other services can be offered to member projects to ease non-development and other administrative burdens.