News from the Python Software Foundation
PyCon UK takes place in Birmingham UK from 12th to 14th September 2008. A full programme includes a day of tutorials; bookings are being taken at http://www.pyconuk.org/booking.html. The early bird rate has been extended to 11th August.
There will be plenary talks by Mark Shuttleworth, Ted Leung and Raymond Hettinger.
You can see a list of already accepted talks at http://pyconuk.org/talk_abstracts.html and a schedule for the tutorial day is at http://pyconuk.org/timetable.html
Yesterday at OSCON I had the pleasure of announcing the 2008 Frank Willison award. This was instituted by O'Reilly in memory of their editor in chief, whose "Frankly Speaking" column was a regular joy on the web: guaranteed to entertain and inform. Frank was a great supporter of Python, and a believer in the value of communities.
Martin von Löwis continues to be a tireless worker on behalf of the Python community. He has been a long-term contributor to the Python core, and regularly answers questions on both the python-dev list and the comp.lang.python newsgroup. A PSF director since 2002 he was also the prime mover in transitioning the Python development infrastructure from SourceForge, and has created several Roundup issue trackers for various areas. He chaired the PSF grants committee, which among other achievements kept Jython alive when its future looked uncertain. I could go on, but you get the idea: when something needs doing, he rarely hesitates to step up to the plate.
Martin has, until today, been one of our unsung heroes. I hope all readers will join me in congratulating him on this well-deserved award.