GSOC Student Applications Open

Students who want to participate in the Google Summer of Code project this year should apply online now! The deadline for applications is April 8, but the load on the servers increases as that date approaches, so apply now to avoid the rush and make sure your application is received in time.

Google Summer of Code

Since 2005, the Python Software Foundation has been sponsoring Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects to pair students with mentors from Python-based projects for real-world development experience. Students who are accepted into the program will spend the summer working on an open source project in Python, and be paid US$5,000 if the project is completed.

Projects

In addition to the mentors from the core Python team, several umbrella teams are already involved with the PSF for GSoC. Details about the proposed project ideas and prospective mentors can be found on the wiki.

Increasing Diversity

The PSF is committed to increasing the diversity of the Python community. One way we are working toward that goal is by encouraging women and other minorities to apply to participate in GSoC through one of the PSF-sponsored projects. The Mailman, SciPy, and PySoy projects are especially active in seeking minority applicants this year.

Important Dates

Student application deadline: 8 April

Students and Mentors paired up: 22 April

Announce accepted Students: 25 April

For more details about the schedule, see the GSoC timeline on the project web site.

Updated: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that students could earn US$4,500 instead of US$5,000.

Funding the Python Miro Community

A year ago Will Kahn-Greene started the Python Miro Community, a web-site that indexes Python-related videos regardless of where those videos exist on the Internet. The PSF has provided US$1,800 to finance continuation of this work, including US$900 for one year of Miro Community service costs. The remainder of the grant will go toward further development of the Python Miro Community.

Miro Community

The Miro Community offers an easy way to collect and curate videos already on the internet. It is one of several projects of the non-profit organization Participatory Culture Foundation all centered around supporting distribution of video content on the Internet. Among these is Universal Subtitles, a toolset and community to add subtitles to any web video.
The Python Miro Community indexes Python-related videos from many separate hosting sites on the Internet. The collection includes metadata for the videos to make them searchable and more useful to people. The site currently holds around 550 videos, covering a wide variety of Python-related topics from Python user groups, Python-related conferences like PyCon, and other sources.

Funding usage

US$900 of the grant will go towards Miro Community service costs as PCF rolls out Miro Community 1.2, which has a tiered service plan. The other US$900 of the grant will go towards improvements to Python Miro Community:

• integrate Universal Subtitles into the site
• fixing Miro Community software to allow transcriptions to be part of the search corpus
• fixing Miro Community software to allow for automated data validation

See also Will's blog on the grant and for additional information.

Minutes for Members' Meeting of March 11, 2011 Now Available

The minutes for the members' meeting at PyCon on March 11, 2011 are now available online.

SciPy 2011: Call for Papers

SciPy 2011, the 10th Python in Science conference, will be held July 11 - 16, 2011, in Austin, TX.

At this conference, novel applications and breakthroughs made in the pursuit of science using Python are presented. The conference is preceded by two days of tutorials, during which community experts provide training on several scientific Python packages.

Potential speakers are invited to take part by submitting a talk abstract at the conference website. Associated papers (optional) are included in the peer-reviewed conference proceedings, to be published online.

This year will also feature two specialized tracks, whose express aim it is to open up SciPy to the broader Python community. The first track is Python in Data Science chaired by Peter Wang, and the second is entitled Python and Core Technologies chaired by Anthony Scopatz.

Important Dates for Authors

• Friday, April 15: Tutorial proposals due (remember: stipends will be provided for Tutorial instructors)
• Sunday, April 24: Paper abstracts due
• Sunday, May 8: Student sponsorship request due
• Tuesday, May 10: Accepted talks announced
• Monday, May 16: Student sponsorships announced
• Monday, May 23: Early Registration ends
• Sunday, June 20: Papers due
• Monday-Tuesday, July 11 - 12: Tutorials
• Wednesday-Thursday, July 13 - July 14: Conference
• Friday-Saturday, July 15 - July 16: Sprints

PyCon 2011 Videos

Videos from this year's edition of PyCon are being uploaded and some are already available on Python's Miro Community page and on Blip TV. All presentations this year were of high caliber and the diversity will please everyone interested in Python. If you missed the conference, or just one or two presentations that you really wanted to see, check out the videos today!

Python-Dev Launches Python Insider Blog

The Python development team has launched a new blog.

Python Insider is the official blog of the Python core development team. It will provide a way for people who don't follow the mailing list to get an overview of topics discussed there, and especially to learn about changes in store for Python.

The announcement includes details about how to subscribe to the blog through its RSS feed, email, and Twitter.

Google Summer of Code: Call for Projects and Mentors

Since 2005, the Python Software Foundation has been sponsoring Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects to pair students with mentors from Python-based projects for real-world development experience. We are pleased to announce that the PSF is a GSoC sponsoring organization again for 2011!

Call for Applications

The PSF is accepting proposals from different projects in the Python ecosystem. In order to qualify for PSF sponsorship, projects must be prepared to provide at least three mentors to act as guides for students over the course of the summer. Projects also need a well-defined method of team communication, such as a mailing list or dedicated IRC channel.

In addition to the mentors from the core Python team, several umbrella teams are already involved with the PSF for GSoC. They include:

• Mailman
• Mercurial
• Pyjamas
• PyLint
• PyPy
• PySoy
• Tryton

The number of student positions available for PSF projects is based on the number of project applications received during this phase of the program. So if your project could benefit from participating in GSoC, submit an application!

Students

Currently, the PSF is only accepting proposals from different projects in the Python ecosystem. However, it is never too early for students to be involved!

Students may submit to their GSoC application to the PSF from March 28th - April 8th. Please see the GSoC timeline for the complete program schedule. We encourage students to find a project they are interested in working with before the application period opens. Sending an inquiry to the project's mailing list asking where help is needed is highly recommended.

More Details

The GSoC timeline has the complete program schedule.

For more information, please refer to the PSF GSoC status page.

For further questions, please contact the PSF GSoC 2011 coordinator, Arc Riley.

Fill out an application online to have your project considered.

PyCon Australia

The PSF Board of Directors has awarded a $1500 USD grant to sponsor PyCon AU.

Date and Location

PyCon Australia 2011 will be held in Sydney on the weekend of the 20th and 21st of August in Sydney, Australia. The Call for Proposals has already been sent out.

PyCon AU

Australian Python programming enthusiasts are continuing the global PyCon tradition in Sydney. This will be the second Australian PyCon event, and the organizers anticipate 250 participants. The schedule will include dozens of presentations on topics including web programming, business applications, game development, science and mathematics, social issues, education, testing, databases, documentation and more.

More Information

For more details, refer to the PyCon AU website or mailing list.

Call for Applications: Sprint Funding

The PSF Sprints Committee has sent out a call for applications from groups who want funding to host sprints on Python-related development work.

Sprints Committee

The Sprints Committee was established in June 2010 to encourage and assist groups to come together to work on Python-related projects. The committee has successfully funded a number of sprints since it was created, and the PSF Board of Directors has recently set aside additional funding to be used for sprinting during the upcoming year.

Sprint Topics

Sprints on any topic related to Python may qualify for a grant. Groups can work on any of the interpreters (CPython, PyPy, Jython, IronPython, etc.), modules from the standard library, third-party libraries, development tools, or anything else affecting the community.

Sponsored sprints have covered topics including porting Genshi to Python 3, improvements to packaging as part of the Distribute/distutils project, and most recently, the PyPy winter sprint in Switzerland. Check out the sprints blog for more details.

Assistance

The Sprints Committee has prepared guides for sprinting on Python core and porting to Python 3 to help make your event successful. In addition to organizational support, the committee can also offer financial assistance in the form of grants.

Any sprint group can apply for a grant from to cover expenses directly related to a sprint event. That includes buying meals, renting meeting space, and other reasonable expenses. The maximum grant for an event is US$300.

If your group is interested in hosting a sprint, check out the full details of the call for applications at and contact the Sprints Committee at sprints@python.org.

Now Accepting Applications for Google Summer of Code Projects

The PSF is preparing its submission to participate in the Google Summer of Code again this year. The first step in that process is to solicit applications from projects that want to participate, and the call for submissions is now officially open.

Google Summer of Code

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) offers stipends to college students who write code for open source software projects. The program works by pairing students with mentors from participating projects to benefit both groups. Students are exposed to real-world software development practices, and the mentoring projects gain new contributors. More than 4,500 students and 4,000 mentors have participated in the program since its beginning in 2005. Contributions have come from over 85 countries around the world, making GSoC a truely global effort to improve the state of open source software.

Requirements for Participating Projects

Although any project is able to apply to participate directly in the Google Summer of Code, the application period with Google is closed for this year. Fortunately, the PSF also sponsors Python-related projects that need an umbrella organization to assist with the administration work for GSoC. In order to qualify for PSF sponsorship, projects must be prepared to provide at least three mentors to act as guides for students over the course of the summer. Projects also needs a well-defined method of team communication, such as a mailing list or dedicated IRC channel.

To submit your project for consideration, fill out the online application. More details about the PSF's involvement in GSoC is available on the 2011 Summer of Code page.

Bring the Superbowl of Python to Your Hometown

The site for PyCon 2014 and 2015 has not been set, yet. If you want your city to be considered, attend the Site Selection Meeting in the Dunwoody room at PyCon 2011 during the Sunday lunch break. Tell us why your city should be the next host of the premier Python conference in North America.

PSF Funds readthedocs.org

The PSF Board has awarded a grant of USD $840 to the Read the Docs project for twelve months of hosting fees.

Read the Docs

Created by Eric Holscher, Charles Leifer, and Bobby Grace, readthedocs.org is a documentation hosting site born out of the 2010 Django Dash competition. The site monitors git, Mercurial, and Subversion source repositories and automatically builds a project's documentation using Sphinx. Users can also create documentation directly through the site using a built-in editor.

The code for Read the Docs is itself open source, and contributions from users and other interested parties are always welcome.

More Details

The original announcement of the site describes the background for the project and its motivation.

Eric's presentation at PDX Python in February 2011 includes details about the tools used to build the site.

The Getting Started Guide covers all of the details you need to add the documentation for your project to the site.

Call for submissions for promotional brochure

A new PSF project aims to create professional quality promotional material about Python. The first goal is to create a brochure to showcase the many ways Python is used. It will include use cases to highlight the ways the language allows users to accomplish their tasks both in educational and in professional settings.

Project team members Marc-André Lemburg, Jan Ulrich Hasecke, and Armin Stross-Radschinski created this Plone marketing brochure for the German Zope User Group. It is the inspiration for this new project.

Community feedback and awareness is vitally important for the success of this initiative, mainly to gather information to be used in the brochure. We are especially looking for interesting projects that can be discussed as use-cases.

If you have any suggestions for information to include in the brochure, please contact Marc-André Lemburg or send an email to brochure AT getpython DOT info.

UPDATE: more information about the brochure, including a newsletter, can be found here.