So you want to host PyCon 2008...

Now is a good time to start thinking about the location of PyCon 2008. This posting is a call for interested groups to begin considering and planning sites for the 2008 conference.

Dallas TX was chosen as the location of PyCon 2006 and 2007 because the local Python user group prepared an excellent set of web pages describing the proposed location.

We'll repeat this procedure for 2008: interested groups can prepare bids describing their city and suggested venue. The selection of the 2008 location might be made at the 2007 conference, or the PSF and the conference chair might choose a location after mutual consultation.

Do you have an idea for where PyCon 2008 could be held? Here's what to do:

• Form a group of people interested in helping with the conference planning.
• Read the list of location requirements. This list is modelled on the Perl Foundation's venue requirements for their YAPC conferences and on past PyCon experience.
• Consider how your location meets the requirements, and research issues such as transportation and costs.
• Write up a bid describing your location. This bid should cover all of the areas listed in the requirements: facilities, catering, accommodations, audiovisual equipment, etc.

Feedback on the requirements is welcome; you can either e-mail me at (amk at amk.ca) or post to the pycon-organizers mailing list.

PyCon 2006 presentations online

Some of the presentations from PyCon 2006 are now available from www.python.org. Unfortunately not all of the authors have made their presentations available, but about half of the presentations are there.

If you presented a talk at PyCon and want to have your slides added to the archive, please e-mail them to (webmaster at python.org). HTML is preferred and PDF is OK; PowerPoint or OpenOffice presentations will also be accepted.

-- Andrew Kuchling, chair, PyCon 2006.

PSF participation in Google's Summer of Code

The PSF is planning to participate in Google's Summer of Code again, and is calling for help from the community. Here's how you can help:

• Suggest project ideas by recording them on the SummerOfCode wiki page.
• Volunteer to mentor a student. Send an e-mail to Neal Norwitz (nnorwitz at gmail dot com) to volunteer.

You can discuss any SoC topic on soc2006@python.org

Minutes of PSF Board meetings available

In full colour:

http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/2006-02-25 (board meeting at PyCon)

http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/2006-03-13

— David Goodger, PSF Secretary

PyCon 2006 financial report

I am pleased to report that the financial outcome of PyCon 2006 was profitable.

The profit was about US$19000. This money will go into the PSF's general funds.

Not taken into account in the above profit figure:

• Drew Moore arranged for the manufacture of the travel mugs and, once his costs were recouped, donated the remaining proceeds to the PSF. Wesley Chun also donated proceeds from the sale of the tutorial notes. I believe this amount is somewhere between $1000-$2000.
• The PSF spent $6000 to help people attend PyCon by paying for their plane flights, hotel rooms, and registrations. I view this as a PSF grant program, not a conference expense, so have left it out of the calculation.

I'd like to draw attention to the amount of money saved thanks to the work and effort of the local volunteers. One example would be the power strips that were available in the ballroom and the quiet room and during the sprints. Having the hotel provide power strips would have cost about $6000 over the course of the conference; the sprints alone would have cost about $800 per day. Instead, Jeff Rush purchased $1000 worth of power strips, and the local volunteers spent hours taping them into place. Thanks to everyone who volunteered!

Also, thanks to the conference's sponsors. See the sidebar at us.pycon.org for the list of sponsors. Registration and tutorial fees alone wouldn't have covered the conference's expenses, and sponsorship was critical to helping PyCon stay profitable.

PyCon 2007 will stick to the goal of remaining low-cost while not losing money for the PSF. This year's profit means that we can spend more money to improve the conference next year.

-- Andrew Kuchling, PyCon 2006 Chair (and PyCon 2007 co-Chair)

Python 2.5 Licensing Change

[To avoid any uncertainty on the part of later readers, this article was part of an April Fool's joke. No such licensing changes are currently anticipated. SH]

April 1, 2006 -- The Python Software Foundation today announces a significant change to the licensing conditions for the Python programming language. Since this change will require payments by commercial users this article explains the reasoning that led the Board to the decision to change Python's licensing terms and conditions. First, the details of the change: Section B, clause 2 is modified to read (our italics):

2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License Agreement, PSF hereby grants Licensee a nonexclusive, world-wide license to reproduce, analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare derivative works, distribute, and otherwise use Python 2.5 alone or in any derivative version, provided, however, that PSF's License Agreement and PSF's notice of copyright, i.e., "Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Python Software Foundation; All Rights Reserved" are retained in Python 2.5 alone or in any derivative version prepared by Licensee. License is royalty free for applications and derivative products distributed under any approved open source license. Other applications and derivative products are required to pay the Python Software Foundation a royalty of $US 1.25 per installed copy.

The Board realises that this change will be contentious. There are many advantages to making it, however, which we feel will benefit the Python community at large and the PSF membership in particular. Users who wish to make commercial use of Python on a royalty-free basis are encouraged to continue using Python 2.4, whose licensing conditions remain the same. The decision has been borne of necessity: the Foundation is supposed to promote the advance of the Python language, but to do this properly would involve many expenses that the Foundation simply cannot afford to incur without increasing its income. The additional money will be put to good use, funding several adventurous programs:

• We anticipate being able to pay individuals to speak about Python to encourage the growth of the user community; this will in turn increase revenues still further.
• The treasurer's projections indicate that by the year 2010 we should be able to make PyCon a completely free conference.
• A further round of grants will be awarded for the development of new language features, including a) making strings mutable; b) re-implementing regular expressions to give better conformance with Perl; and c) porting Python to the simple CPU.

Python has always been a community-based language, and the Board of the Foundation sincerely hope that users will send us their own ideas for taking advantage of the significant funding that this change is likely to provide. The Board is grateful to the Advanced Program for Research In Licensing, whose First Object-Oriented License was a model for these changes. Interested readers can find out more about this license on this page.