Thursday, November 30, 2006

PyCon 2007 - Fifth Annual Python Community Conference

ADDISON, TX, November 30, 2006 - PyCon 2007, the fifth annual conference of the Python community, will take place February 23-25 at the Dallas/Addison Marriott Quorum hotel. The keynote speakers will include Ivan Krstic, from the One Laptop Per Child project; Adele Goldberg, a developer of Smalltalk; Robert M. Lefkowitz, an expert on the use of open source in business; and Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python.

PyCon annually attracts hundreds of attendees interested in the open-source Python language, ranging from novice programmers to developers of the language core. This year's conference will include a record sixty-four sessions, covering the use of Python in a broad range of contexts, such as web development, testing, and cross-language integration; case studies in industry, science, and education; and Python implementations for the Java and .NET platforms.

The program will also include intensive half-day tutorials, impromptu Open Space talks, Birds-of-a-Feather topical gatherings, and the ever-popular five-minute Lightning Talks. One new feature this year will be the Python Lab, a collaborative, hands-on problem-solving environment. Following the conference, many developers will stay for Sprints, extending the Python language and Python projects through several days of intense, cooperative coding.

PyCon is organized by members of the Python community, and made possible by the Python Software Foundation and conference sponsors.

For more information or to register, please visit the PyCon 2007 website: http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/

Information for members of the press is collected at http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/ForPress

Contact information

Publicity coordinator: Catherine Devlin
IntelliTech Systems
catherine.devlin at gmail dot com
937-427-8814x222
Conference chair: Andrew M. Kuchling
ASTi
amk at amk dot ca
703-471-2104 x120

Alternately, send e-mail with a phone number to psf at python dot org and someone will call you as soon as possible.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Status of the Grants Committee

A report by Martin von Löwis on the status of the PSF grants from 2004, and his thoughts on the past and future of the Grants Committee.

PSF adopts a trademark policy

The PSF holds a registered trademark on the word "Python". Every few weeks someone writes to the board and asks permission to distribute a program with the word "Python" in its name or to do something with the Python logo. The PSF's board wanted to have a document explaining the PSF's goals for the trademark and discussing common use cases.

During Monday's board meeting, we voted to adopt the policy available at www.python.org/psf/trademarks. This document is version 1.2.2 because it went through a few rounds of rewriting on the board and PSF-members mailing lists, as well as some checking by the PSF's counsel.

We hope the policy is reasonably clear and understandable. If in doubt about any usage of the trademark, please write the PSF at (psf at python dot org).