Python Papers Article on the PSF

The latest issue of The Python Papers (volume 2 issue 4) contains an article about the Python Software Foundation, starting on page 9. The article overviews the PSF's organization and finances, and describes our activities in protecting Python and funding Python conferences, grants, and special projects. A plethora of other articles and interviews makes this 82-page PDF well worth the download time. Please check it out!

Donate to the Python Software Foundation!

Please consider including the Python Software Foundation (PSF) in your year-end charitable giving.

Your donation will help us protect the open source status of Python. The PSF also provides the financial backing that makes PyCon possible, donates to other Python conferences around the world, and funds grants and special projects in the Python community.

For details of our activities, please see the PSF pages on the Python website.

You can donate here

Donations from individuals are tax deductible in the US and may be tax deductible in other countries, or as a business expense. We take credit cards, checks, wire transfers, and PayPal.

Sponsorship Opportunities for Businesses

Businesses invested in Python can also become a sponsor member of the PSF.

Or become a sponsor of PyCon 2008, a great way to gain exposure for your business or find talented Python programmers to hire.

Thanks!

November PSF Board Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, November 12, 2007

Python and the Google Highly Open Participation Contest

We are happy to announce that the Python Software Foundation is part of a new Google Open Source program, the Highly Open Participation Contest. This contest is an effort by Google to engage pre-college students in open source programming: Google is offering prizes and awards for completing a variety of tasks for several organizations.

You can read about the overall Google Highly Open Participation Contest, and see Python's GHOP project page.

Pythonistas interested in helping can both suggest more tasks and help mentor participants. Instructions for doing both are available on the project Wiki under NewTaskGuidelines and MentorPage.

A large cast was involved in coming up with the tasks, including Brett Cannon, Collin Winter, Michal Kwiatkowski, Grig Gheorghiu, Greg Wilson, Terry Peppers, Shannon Behrens, Michael Carter, Phil Hassey, and Michael Mol. We would especially like to thank Georg Brandl, Titus Brown, Will Guaraldi, Doug Hellmann, and Andre Roberge for writing up the tasks and creating the project wiki.

Leslie Hawthorn at Google is the contact for this program, and we would like to thank her and Google for inviting the PSF to take part!

October PSF Board Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, October 8, 2007

Seeking volunteer postmasters

The group of volunteers that handles python.org email needs help. This involves responding to post master email messages, moderating and managing some Mailman lists, and administrating the Postfix installation.

If you have experience with Mailman and/or Postfix and would like to help, please contact sdeibel at python dot org. Because of the nature of this job, please also include some references -- it's best if you're already known within the Python community.

Help the PSF Help Python

The uninitiated tend to view the Python Software Foundation (PSF) as some sort of shadowy legal entity that mysteriously rules the Python community. In fact, the PSF has no ambition to "manage" the community (this is open source!) and we certainly don't just work on legal things. The important message that gets lost in this misconception is:

The PSF is Here to Help!

If you're a volunteer working on some aspect of the Python community -- whether developing code, organizing a conference, supporting end users, or running servers and other infrastructure -- please keep in mind that the PSF may be able to help with problems that you run into.

In particular, we're interested in areas where volunteers are overwhelmed, or where some funding could help to bootstrap or enable a subsequently self-sustaining resource for the community. We've supported efforts as diverse as the new bug tracker, Python conferences around the world, and the python.org website redesign.

We can't always be as proactive as we'd like, so may not know you need our help. Tell us!

The other side of the message, equally important, is:

Python Needs Your Help!

Alas, the PSF isn't an interplanetary enterprise with a hundred thousand employees, so it's mostly volunteers that run the Python community. Indeed it does take significant effort to keep things going. Postmaster, website maintainer, help list responder, and job board updater are all volunteer posts that come to mind immediately. There are many other areas that can use the help of active volunteers.

Such tasks are often an excellent training ground, and a good way to get your feet wet participating in (and meeting) the Python community. For experienced hands that already know everything and everybody, it's a great way to give back to Python, and make a valuable difference in the Python universe.

Please consider helping out. You'll earn the satisfaction of sitting 'round the bar at PyCon shooting the breeze over a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster or three. Guaranteed!

So, What Do I Do Now?

If you have a suggestion, feel free to add a comment to this entry. To help out, please contact us at psf@python.org or join our volunteer pool email list.

Oh, and please pass the word on to others!

Thanks!

September PSF Board Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, September 10, 2007

PyCon 2008: Call for Talk & Tutorial Proposals

Proposals for PyCon 2008 talks & tutorials are now being accepted. The deadline for proposals is November 16. PyCon 2008 will be held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, from March 13-20. See the PyCon blog article for details.

PSF Sponsored EuroPython 2007

The PSF donated $5000 to EuroPython 2007, which was held July 9th-11th in Vilnius, Lithuania. About 220-230 people attended the conference.

PSF Sponsors New PyCons

The PSF was one of the sponsors of PyCon UK, which took place September 8th and 9th in Birmingham. $2,500 were donated. About 190 attended the conference. The next PyCon UK will be held the 12th to 14th September 2008 also in Birmingham.

The PSF was also a Gold Sponsor for PyCon Italia, which took place June 9th and 10th in Firenze. 1,500 Euros were donated. Our three free passes were donated to students and others that needed the financial assistance. About 200 attendees were at the conference. The 2008 conference has not yet been scheduled.

August PSF Board Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, August 13, 2007

June & July PSF Board Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, June 11, 2007

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, July 9, 2007

PSF Board meeting minutes available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, March 12, 2007

April 9, 2007

May 14, 2007

Apologies for not announcing these earlier.

-- David Goodger, PSF Secretary

Argentina conference: Santa Fe Python Day

Facundo Batista posted a report on the Santa Fe Python Day, held on Saturday June 9 2007. The PSF was one of the conference sponsors. $500 were donated. Facundo writes:

It was very successful. Around +300 people assisted, and there were a lot of interesting talks (two introductory talks, Turbogears, PyWeek, Zope 3, security, creating 3D games, Plone, automatic security testings, concurrency, and programming the OLPC).

[Facundo Batista's original post]

Supporting Python user groups

Advocacy coordinator Jeff Rush has created some new mailing lists and resources for usergroup organizers, described in his post to the Python Advocacy weblog. To summarize:

• a weblog for usergroup event reports
• a mailing list for usergroup organizers, group-organizers
• an updated list of usergroups (it's in the wiki, so be sure your local group is there)

Jeff also suggests that groups can market themselves by writing articles or recording video of presentations at their meetings. Please see his post for more.

Sys Admin Magazine Calls for Papers

Have you used Python to improve your life as a system administrator? (Yes, even system administrators are supposed to have lives). If so then Sys Admin magazine would like you to write an article., and this year's December issue has scripting as its theme. The required lead time for print publications is longer than you might anticipate - see their editorial calendar, and you should also check their author guidelines - so we are publishing this notice early enough to allow plenty of time for planning and writing. Let's see lots of Python articles in that issue. Fame and fortune await you, not to mention the gratitude of your fellow Pythonistas! We understand that the magazine does pay for published articles, but you should agree payment terms and amount with them in advance.

PSF Projects for the Summer of Code

Google has announced the list of accepted students in the 2007 Summer of Code and the Python Software Foundation will be mentoring 34 projects. Thank you to everyone who applied and congratulations to the successful students. In addition to the PSF, numerous other mentoring organization are running Python-related projects.

Thanks to James Tauber for coordinating the selection process for the PSF, and to all of the other mentors who assessed and ranked projects. Greg Wilson has created a page listing all projects from all participating organizations.

PSF and Google's Summer of Code

The Python Software Foundation is again participating in Google's Summer of Code; students can apply for funding to work on projects over the summer, and be paired with an experienced mentor who will provide advice and guidance. James Tauber is the PSF's coordinator for the Summer of Code.

This year, the PSF is reserving a certain number of slots for projects related to CPython or Jython.

If you'd like to apply as a student participant, please see the wiki page wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode for more information, including project ideas, the list of mentors, and instructions and tips on how to apply.

Minutes of February PSF Board & Members' Meetings

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, February 12, 2007

Minutes of the 2007 Python Software Foundation Members' Meeting, February 23, 2007

Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, February 25, 2007

-- David Goodger, PSF Secretary

Last call for proxy forms for PSF members' meeting

PyCon begins next week. On the evening of Friday February 23rd is the PSF's annual members' meeting. Many PSF members will be in attendance, but for those who won't: please send in your proxy forms or absentee ballots NOW! See the meeting agenda for links. Forms have to be faxed or emailed to the PSF Secretary by Monday February 19; full details are on the forms.

PSF members represent the Python community. The minimum commitment of each PSF member is to vote in person or by proxy at annual Python Software Foundation meetings and to keep the PSF updated with address changes. See the PSF Membership FAQ.

January PSF Board Meeting Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, January 8, 2007

Grants Update: Jython Project

In 2004, the PSF selected three grant proposals to fund. One of them, "Moving Jython Forward", was only partially completed by Brian Zimmer due to a job change. Some time later, Frank Wierzbicki offered to take over maintenance of the Jython project, but he found that he had under-estimated the amount of work necessary when taking over the proposal from Brian, and he did not make as much progress as he had wanted to.

Martin von Löwis, the Grants Committee chair, has since discussed this project with Frank, and they agreed to cancel the remaining grant funding, as there was likely no chance to achieve the planned goals any time soon.

Jython itself, an implementation of Python written in Java, is still very much worth supporting, and Andrew Kuchling has put support for Jython on his agenda. The PSF will continue to support Jython going forward.

New site: planet.jython.org

Introducing a new PSF site: planet.jython.org, which collects posts by Jython users and developers. If your weblog belongs on Planet Jython, please write to <webmaster at python.org>.

December PSF Board Meeting Minutes Available

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Python Software Foundation, December 11, 2006

PyCon 2007 Funding Available

The Python Software Foundation has allocated some funds to help people attend PyCon 2007. If you'd like to come to PyCon but can't afford it, maybe the PSF can help you. The funding can cover any or all of:

• Your registration for PyCon
• Your hotel room at the conference hotel
• Your flight or other transportation

To apply, send e-mail to <pycon at python dot org>. Please state your name, location, and what you would like to have funded. If you want assistance with your transportation costs, please provide a rough estimate (say, to the nearest US$100) of how much a round-trip will cost.

You should also say why you should come to PyCon, and what you'll be doing. We don't need an essay, but please provide a few sentences of explanation. Priority will be given to people who can contribute significantly to PyCon or to Python, e.g. students working on a task, conference speakers, sprint leaders or developers critical to a sprint, or people doing public service work with Python.

Messages must be received by January 19 2007. Upon receiving your message, we'll send you a notice of receipt. The PSF's Conference Committee and I will discuss the applications and allocate funding to a subset of the applicants. You should be notified of acceptance/rejection by January 28 2007.

Cost notes: PyCon registration is US$195. Hotel rooms are around $90/night; about $300 for the duration of the conference, $700 for conference + sprints. The hotel cost can be lower if you find someone (or two or three) to share a room with; this is encouraged. The PSF can't cover your meals during the conference, or registration fees for tutorials.

We will try to maximize the benefit of the funding. For example, three people who need small amounts are more likely to be funded than one person who needs a large amount. To improve your chances, please try to request the minimum amount of funding you need to attend PyCon.

David Goodger
PyCon 2007 Funding Coordinator
http://us.pycon.org