Friday, December 29, 2017

Python Software Foundation Fellow Members for Q4 2017


We are happy to announce our 2017 4th Quarter Python Software Foundation Fellow Members:
  • Belinda Weaver - taught over 20 workshops throughout Australia and organized several as well.
  • Chukwudi Nwachukwu - helped establish a strong Python community in Nigeria and continues to support it.
  • Don Sheu - founded the Seattle Python User Group, continues to help organize it, and helps run PyCon's Startup Row.
  • Fernando Masanori Ashikaga - teaches workshops on a regular basis and is a contributor to the PSF's Grants Work Group.
  • Donald Stufft - the lead maintainer of PyPI and creator of the Warehouse project.
  • Ivaylo Bachvarov - does Python education and outreach in Bulgaria. 
  • Filip Kłębczyk - lead the organizing of PyCon Poland for many years and continues to organize it.
  • Mai Giménez - helped organize PyCon Spain in 2015 and continues to design the website, and organizes local meetups.
  • Juan Luis Cano - lead the organization of the first PyCon Spain, continues to help organize PyCon Spain and has contributed to Python in Aeronautics.
  • Mabel Delgado - co-founded PyLadies Madrid, organizes several user groups and workshops, helped organize PyCon Spain 2017.
  • Mario Corchero - lead the organization of PyCon Spain 2017, helped organize PyCon's Startup Row events in London and New York, is an advocate for Python in the Bloomberg community.
  • Manuel Kaufmann - organized over 50 events and continues to do education and outreach in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
  • Mário Sérgio Oliveira de Queiroz - organized Python Brasil 2016 and over 20 local user group meetings, co-founded the PyLadies Floripa group and the Python Sul Conference.
  • Russell Keith-Magee - an active contributor to the Django core development team, organized DjangoCon Australia for several years and continues to help organize it, created and continues to maintain BeeWare.
  • Ola Sendecka - co-founded Django Girls and organized DjangoCon Europe 2013.
  • Ola Sitarska - co-founded Django Girls and organized DjangoCon Europe 2013.
  • Richard Kellner - founded PyCon Slovakia and continues to organize it.
  • Selena Deckelman - founded the Portland PyLadies chapter and is an advocate for improved collaboration between open source contributors and local teachers.
  • Yamila Moreno - lead the organization of the first PyCon Spain, created PyLadies Spain, contributes to the Python Spain infrastructure setup (servers, static blog).
Congratulations! Thank you for all of the contributions you continue to make. We have added you to our Fellow roster online.

The above members have contributed to the Python ecosystem by organizing events, creating educational platforms, improving web development, establishing regional communities, improving mobile implementation, speaking, contributing to scientific Python, boosting diversity, and maintaining core infrastructure. Their efforts continue to grow our community and help make Python sustainable.

If you would like to nominate someone to be a PSF Fellow, please send a description of their Python accomplishments and their email address to psf-fellow at python.org. Here is a schedule of review for 2018:
  • Q1: January to the end of March (01/01 - 31/03) Cut-off for nominations will be February 20. New fellows will be announced before March 31. 
  • Q2: April to the end of June (01/04 - 30/06) Cut-off for quarter two will be May 20. New fellows will be announced before June 30. 
  • Q3: July to the end of September (01/07 - 30/09) Cut-off for quarter three will be August 20. New fellows will be announced before end of September. 
  • Q4: October to the end of December (01/10 - 31/12) Cut-off for quarter four will be November 20. New fellows will be announced before December 31. 
If you submit your nomination by February 20, 2018, we will consider the nominee for Q1 of 2018.

We are still looking for a few more voting members to join the Work Group. If you are a PSF Fellow and would like to join, please write to psf-fellow at python.org.

Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Community is at its Peak at North Bay Python

As I sat in the cool, darkened theater, I reflected on what had brought me to North Bay Python. While I had heard the buzz about a Python conference in Petaluma, it wasn’t until PyLadies Vancouver offered me a free ticket that I decided to attend. A quick flight from Seattle brought me to San Francisco the night before North Bay Python started, allowing me time to partake in one of my favorite hobbies -  navigating public transit to new places. Sitting in the theater I felt lucky. Though I had attended a variety of Geographic Information Systems conferences, this was my first Python conference outside of PyData Seattle and local meetups. I could not wait for what was in store.

Nestled in the heart of wine country in Sonoma County, roughly 40 miles north of San Francisco, sits the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma. Built in 1911 and normally hosting theater and music shows, the theater is not the usual host for a tech conference. Christopher Neugebauer, an organizer of North Bay Python, originally had the idea to hold a conference at the Mystic Theatre earlier this year as he was talking to friends at PyCon. By the end of PyCon 2017 it was decided, and planning had begun for the first annual North Bay Python conference. 

The historic venue wasn’t the only thing special about this conference. Before the talks began, Christopher got on stage and informed us of the code of conduct, photo sensitivity policies, all-gender bathrooms, quiet spaces, and nursing room. We were provided a number to call if at any time during the conference we felt unsafe. Next, Josh Simmons, another organizer, asked the audience, “Who here is attending a technical conference for the first time?” Roughly 40% of the 230 attendees raised their hand, shocking the organizers at the overwhelming percentage of newcomers. Thus the largest developer conference held in Sonoma County was also, perhaps, its most welcoming.


This single-track conference offered a relevant and diverse range of topics including security considerations, using Python to orchestrate libraries written in Fortran and C, demystifying iterators, and developing good leadership practices. Keynote Brandon Rhodes, having received many questions about his PyCon 2017 slides, which he ran completely inside a terminal, gave an overview of why and how he made them. Keynote Carina C. Zona presented a compelling case for 2 Factor Authentication (2FA), as well as guidance on how to make 2FA more user-friendly and inclusive. Some of my favorite talks were those that had the audience in stitches. Melanie Crutchfield’s talk entitled “Stumbling Through Django and How Not To” took us through her process of building a Django application and lessons she learned so that we don’t have to, was full of hilarious analogies and delightful hand-drawn slides. Benno Rice’s talk, “A Young Twitter Bot's Illustrated Primer”, walked us through his adventures with Twitter bots, which was not only informative but peppered with ridiculous bot-generated tweets.


While planning the schedule, Christopher and the other organizers had a shortlist of keynote speakers in mind. "We were lucky enough to get our first two choices!” said Christopher. For the remaining talks, they put together a call for proposals, offering support for those interested in speaking through workshops and feedback sessions. In the end, they ran a blind review process which anonymized proposals to compensate for biases. The organizers were very pleased with the result as Christopher explained, “we ended up with an astonishingly high-quality program that included new speakers and a community representation that we are really proud of."


In terms of networking opportunities, North Bay Python provided a wiki for people to use to gather in Birds of a Feather groups. Others used Twitter to find people to have lunch or dinner with. Additionally, the organizers collaborated with PyLadies San Francisco and PyLadies Silicon Valley to hold a PyLadies lunch on the first day of the conference, free of charge and open to all PyLadies in attendance and their supporters.


Rachel Kelly, a DevOps engineer at Bright.md and seasoned conference goer noticed many special things about this conference. “I have never seen a nursing room at a conference before”, she said, “and I have been to what are undoubtedly some of the world’s most inclusive conferences.” She went on to say, “the code of conduct was not only a requirement for attendance, it was reinforced at the beginning and touched on throughout the weekend, sometimes personally from the organizers.” The single-track of the conference was also much appreciated, she noted, “I loved being able to focus on and watch every single talk, something we are rarely afforded at technical conferences.”


So will they do it again next year? “Absolutely!” said Christopher, “our first conference felt really special, and we can’t wait to share Petaluma and this experience with even more people in 2018.”


North Bay Python was organized by Christopher Neugebauer, Joshua Simmons, Sam Kitajima-Kimbrel, Andrew Godwin, and Sarah Kuchinsky. The full schedule can be found on their website. Videos from the conference were produced by Next Day Video and every talk is now available for viewing on the North Bay Python YouTube channel.

Friday, December 01, 2017

The PSF’s Grant Program Policies and Preferences

Are you starting a new Python conference, founding a group, or beginning a workshop? The Python Software Foundation can help with a grant. But first, you need to understand our policies.

The PSF has had a grants program for many years. Over the last 4 years, the program has become increasingly known in our community, which has always been a desired outcome. As knowledge of the grants program grows, however, the PSF receives more grant requests, ultimately meaning our PSF staff and volunteers have more grant requests to process. On occasion the PSF updates our grant policies as we learn more about best practices.

Our goal with this post is to inform the public of what our current policies are. The policies may change over time so remember to review the PSF's grant policies when submitting a request to ensure you have the most up-to-date information. We also have a Frequently Asked Questions page about grants.

What are the current grant policies & preferences?


  • We prefer to receive your request at least 6 weeks out from the event or project start date. We receive a high volume of requests and our volunteers that review the requests are all around the world contributing remotely. A six week lead time will allow us sufficient time to thoroughly review your request and provide follow up as necessary. Effective immediately, we will not accept grants that are submitted within 10 working days of the event or project start date.
  • Our current focus includes: Python projects (including porting projects), workshops, conferences (especially for financial aid), and Python diversity/inclusivity efforts. Grants for non-Python specific events will only be considered where there's a clear Python component to the event. In the cases of non-Python specific events a grant will only be for the Python component of the event. The PSF will consider supporting a hackathon if the event has hands-on Python education for a minimum of 6 hours. We will not fund prizes for hackathons.
  • We have guidelines on how much funding we award. There is no set maximum, but grants are awarded with consideration for the annual PSF grant budget and the other grant requests that have been submitted and awarded. The Foundation reserves the right to make a grant smaller than the total you request. If this would not be acceptable you should state that in the application.
    • The maximum conference grant size is typically USD 10 per attendee, with a preference towards helping new events to establish themselves in their local community. Larger conferences (300+ attendees) are expected to have access to additional local funding options and hence may be granted a lower amount per attendee. Conferences that are running separate educational programs may also apply for a separate educational grant.
    • The maximum educational program grant size is typically USD 25 per student, provided the students each receive at least 6 hours of Python instruction as part of the educational program. We give preference to students who would otherwise not be able to attend such classes. If the class has an educational hardware component such as a Raspberry Pi that the students get to keep, you may request up to USD 50 per student. Please note that subsequent funding requests for workshops in the same region may be funded at a lower rate to encourage sustainable, long-term relationships with local sponsors. When submitting your workshop grant request, it helps the grants work group to see a brief budget for your event.
    • The PSF will consider grants up to USD 300 for Python-related sprints. Please provide information about focus and goal of the sprint in your application, as well as the number of expected participants.
    • The PSF allocates money each year for PUG website hosting costs and subscriptions to event advertising sites like meetup.com
  • We require all events to have a code of conduct. The code of conduct should be a set of guidelines for your event that set the social norms and practices for the participants, organizers, and sponsors.
  • With regards to payments, we distribute funds via check, wire transfer, and PayPal. If you will be requesting a wire transfer, adjust your request to account for wire transfer fees. PayPal payments to organizations may incur service fees that will need to be paid by the grant recipient. If your grant request is approved, specific information will be requested in the email notification. 
    • We prefer to make payments at an organization-to-organization level when possible due to US IRS accounting rules. 
    • After you receive a notification with the amount of funding the PSF approved for your grant request and you submit an invoice, payment will be processed within 7 business days and the Controller will notify you when the payment has been sent. We sometimes run into issues when sending funding internationally so that is why we ask to receive grant requests 6 weeks out.
  • Reporting is an essential part of our grants program. The PSF would like to see how the grant was used, so we ask to receive a report on the event, project or program that was funded. The PSF has a policy that requires all events to submit reports. These reports are useful for us to gauge the impact we are having and how the event went. For subsequent events, we require past reports in order to consider additional requests. The report should include an overall overview (including location, venue, participation demographics if applicable), sponsors, reflections (including things that went well and things that could be improved, any feedback you received from participants. If your event/project has a blog, social media post, pictures that relate to the grant we'd love to see them, too.
We welcome grant requests via our CiviGrant form. We want to help new communities develop a stronger Python presence in the coming year!

Monday, November 27, 2017

The PSF awarded $170,000 grant from Mozilla Open Source Program to improve sustainability of PyPI

When are we finally going to see Warehouse deployed? What's the holdup? Has this project stalled?

For the last year, we at the Python Packaging Authority have heard these questions continuously from the Python community.

Today we are excited to announce that we have applied for, and been awarded, a grant to help improve the sustainability of the Python Package Index in the amount of $170,000.  This has been awarded by Mozilla, through the Foundational Technology track of their Open Source Support Program.  We would like to thank Mozilla for their support.

This post will explain both the context for this request, and the work that will be funded.
Specifically, this grant funds several contributors' efforts to finish the development and deployment of Warehouse (pypi.org), the replacement for our legacy codebase that runs pypi.python.org -- which will allow more people to contribute.

Background


The Python Packaging Index (PyPI) is the principal repository of software packages for the Python programming language. Currently, over 100 million Python packages are downloaded from PyPI every week. The Python community (and indeed the wider technical community) depends on PyPI for the ongoing functioning of the entire Python ecosystem.

There are no paid staff at the PSF who work on PyPI, and there are only a handful of people who contribute regularly.  This leads to a situation where we have to depend on volunteers to be on-call for outages and respond to critical security vulnerabilities in core Python Infrastructure. For deeper context, read PyPI maintainer Donald Stufft's May 2016 post "Powering the Python Package Index", (but note that since his job change in the last year his paid time to work on PyPI has decreased significantly).

This isn't a tenable situation for the long term, and we hope that this grant will help us start to change this.

Developer Sustainability


Unfortunately, the codebase that runs PyPI is old, almost entirely lacking in automated test coverage and other common best practices. (PyPI contributor Ernest W. Durbin III goes into this further in his PyGotham 2017 talk "Running Vintage Software: PyPI's Aging Codebase.") The new Warehouse code base is built with Pyramid, and is much easier to maintain. This technical debt has a number of undesirable outcomes, but the one I'd like to focus on is repelling new contributors.

Eric Holscher, like many would-be contributors to the legacy PyPI codebase, once tried to contribute a small feature to PyPI years ago, thinking it would be quite simple. However, as he opened the code base and started looking around, he discovered that the code wasn't written in a modern framework, didn't follow standard conventions or best practices, and he could barely even understand where to start adding something new.

Migrating PyPI to a new codebase will stop this from happening. We hope to gain a number of new contributors who are willing and able to help maintain the code base, and decrease the chance of burnout for the staff.

Operations Sustainability


Operations are the other large sustainability issue that we're hoping to tackle with this grant. There are only two people currently who wear a pager and are on-call for PyPI. They are not currently supported by modern automation tools or served by a continuing project manager. Once all package index activity is going through pypi.org (Warehouse) and we deprecate the old pypi.python.org codebase and site, with a stabilized infrastructure resource load, we can assess our new level of staffing and hosting needs. Based on that assessment, we'll be able to fundraise for staffing and ask our sponsors for financial and in-kind donations to keep PyPI robust.

Next Steps


With the help of many people (especially the Packaging Working Group, our MOSS liaison Gervase Markham, our Mozilla champion Dan Callahan, and Ewa Jodlowska and Mark Mangoba at the PSF), we've been figuring out the timeline for this work.

The first milestone for Warehouse is redirecting portions of the production pypi.python.org to Warehouse including traffic for the simple index and package downloads. At that milestone Warehouse will be the main entryway to Python packages for all but a small fraction of the interactions PyPI sees.

The bulk of the work will be bringing Warehouse to feature parity with the administrative capabilities users need from the Package Index.  We'll keep you posted as we figure out when you can expect that to be true.

Please feel free to ask questions about the Warehouse project in the #pypa-dev channel on Freenode, or in the GitHub issues for Warehouse! If you have questions for the PSF about the grant, you can ask via email.

Thanks to Donald Stufft, Ewa Jodlowska, Nathaniel J. Smith, Nick Coghlan, Nicole Harris, Sumana Harihareswara, Ernest W. Durbin III, Dustin Ingram, Mark Mangoba, Kenneth Reitz, Eric Holscher for contributing to this post.

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Eric Floehr, Community Service Award 3rd Quarter 2017 Recipient

When Eric Floehr was a child growing up in Ohio, he had three interests: space, dinosaurs, and the weather. One day, his dad brought home a computer to make video games. Eric and his dad worked together copying code from magazines, thus beginning a lifelong interest in programming.

After getting his bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Ohio State, Eric worked as a software engineer, all while nurturing Python hobbies built on his childhood interests. He now works for the company he founded called Intellovations whose primary product is ForecastWatch, a tool that helps weather forecasters be more accurate. Eric has also been a consistent leader in his local Ohio Python community, all while spreading the Python love by encouraging others to get involved and create groups of their own.

The Python Software Foundation has awarded Eric with the Q3 2017 Community Service Award.
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Q3 2017 Community Service Award be given to Eric Floehr for his work chairing the PyOhio Conference. He is the founder and co-organizer of the Central Ohio Python User Group. COhPy has served as a resource for Python programmers in Columbus, OH. Eric's efforts to "spread Python love" via discussions with leaders of PyNash and IndyPy lead directly to the creation of the annual PyTennessee conference and the Pythology quarterly mini-conferences.

Contributions to the Python Community

PyOhio

While large events like PyCon US are incredibly important for the Python community and bring diverse groups together, it could be argued that smaller groups with more frequent events provide even more benefit. Here attendees are more likely to meet a potential employer/employee, find someone to talk through a problem at work or fun project idea, and socialize with like-minded locals. Eric works from home, which is one of the reasons he enjoys engaging socially with his local Python community. He started by attending PyOhio, a free annual regional Python conference, and quickly wanted to help out. “The first year I helped with pizza, cleanup, and video”, he recalls. By the second year, he was a full-on organizer, “you don’t really need to have any particular skills to organize, just jump in there and do it.”

COhPy

In 2010, when he realized there was no Python group in Columbus, he started The Central Ohio Python User’s Group (COhPy). COhPy hosts meetings once a month where people can listen to talks and chat with local Pythonistas. It also holds networking events and offers other services for the community such as a Slack channel. “Eric's efforts as an organizer of PyOhio and COhPy have given hundreds of Python developers the opportunity to teach and share with thousands of other Python developers”, says Brian Costlow, fellow PyOhio and COhPy organizer, “It gives people the opportunity to grow into speakers and teachers in a small, safe venue, and for many, myself included, to make new and lifelong friends.“ Jason Green, a PyOhio organizer, credits Eric’s gregarious and inclusive nature with his own integration into the Python community. Not only did he welcome Jason to the group, he encouraged him to get involved. “As a leadership mentor, for the last several months,” Jason says, “he has made a point of having me introduce the speakers and welcome new guests.”

Spreading the Python Love

Eric encourages others to get outside of their comfort zone, try new things, and start groups in their own areas. For example, at the PyOhio 2013 conference, Eric put out a call for more regional Python conferences. This struck Jason Myers, a PyOhio attendee, as something that would benefit his Python community in Tennessee. Jason approached Eric with the idea of starting a PyTennessee conference, and Eric immediately offered to help. “Over the course of our first conference planning, call for proposals, and the event itself, Eric was always there with guidance.” Eric’s support didn’t stop there, Jason goes on, “for all four years that I ran PyTennessee, Eric was our best supporter, cheerleader, and advisor.” Jason credits Eric for PyTennessee’s success explaining, “I know without a shadow of a doubt that there would be no PyTennessee without him, and I am eternally grateful for his wisdom, assistance and his friendship.”

Python for Fun

Eric’s love for Python does not end with work and community but is a large part of his hobbies as well. Perhaps his most interesting hobby combines his love of Python and the weather. He set up an old digital camera out his window at home with a Raspberry Pi to take photos every 10 seconds for 3 years. Not only was he able to capture beautiful and dramatic images of weather events, he collected 6 terabytes worth of pictures and metadata that he used Python to analyze in interesting ways. When his analysis was complete in 2015, he gave a fantastic talk on this project at PyOhio.

Time-lapsed images from Eric’s digital camera and raspberry pi

When asked why Python is his language of choice, Eric beams, “Python is a great enabler. It allows people to do more in less time and to build amazing things. From creative works to scientific research, from scratching personal itches, to helping solve critical problems, Python is an incredible tool for growth and exploration. But more than the tool itself,” Eric goes on to say, “it's the community around the tool that I have really fallen in love with. Its focus on inclusivity, tolerance, and respect has been a model for other communities, and it's not only a community I love but one that I'm proud to be a part of.”

What’s next for this Python hobbyist? “Have you seen Westworld?”, he asks. “Like the piano playing by itself in the opening sequence, I’d like to make a mechanical xylophone with 30 keys and 30 hammers that plays itself like a music box.”

Community Service Award Winner Q3 2017 Eric Floehr

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

PSF's October Board Meeting

Last week Monday, October 16th, the Python Software Foundation held its first in-person director meeting outside of PyCon. We were able to get 9 directors together and address a hefty agenda. Each section below summarizes a major topic that we addressed during the meeting.

PSF Directors and friends having dinner in Chicago the night before the meeting

Fiscal Sponsorship
We started the day with a discussion on fiscal sponsorship. From a community perspective, a broader fiscal sponsorship program would allow greater opportunities for corporate funding of key Python projects. Van Lindberg, PSF's General Counsel, gave directors an explanation of what it meant and we discussed the risks and benefits involved in such a program. While the PSF currently has a limited fiscal sponsorship program, we are considering expanding the range of our sponsorships to include Python dev projects such as PyPy. Van is creating a new template contract to use in such agreements, with additional research required to identify the legal implications of fiscally sponsoring organizations that are located outside of the United States. Another necessary change to accommodate the broader fiscal sponsorship requires the PSF's financial staff, Kurt B. Kaiser and Phyllis Dobbs, to document a workflow for how payments/reimbursements will be made in these arrangements.

Official Board Meeting
Our second session of the day was an official board meeting where we began by approving September's meeting minutes. A subsequent discussion began on how we can use the python.org/jobs page to enhance our fundraising efforts. PSF employee, Betsy Waliszewski, will contact the python.org/jobs volunteer group to solicit feedback on how we can tie in their work with fundraising more directly. Another item decided at the board meeting includes the PSF IT Manager, Mark Mangoba, beginning to produce periodic reports for the board on PSF infrastructure traffic. Lastly, Director Eric Holscher and I gave a status update on the Python Packaging Work Group's recent receipt of Mozilla's MOSS Grant. A blog will be written on this topic once more details are confirmed.

PyCon's "Everyone contributes"
The third session of the day continued with Ernest W. Durbin III, PyCon Conference Chair, joining us via phone to discuss various PyCon items. A significant part of the conversation  tackled the "Everyone pays" policy that PyCon has historically maintained. Responsibilities have increased over time so that phrase no longer applies. For example, the PSF employs two full-time employees to execute PyCon in addition to all of the volunteer work that happens. Additionally, volunteer appreciation has evolved. Due to changes like this, we have agreed to change the phrase to "Everyone contributes." Since everyone that attends contributes their time and/or money, we found that to be a more suitable phrase to use.

PyCon's Speaker Financial Support
Recently we heard from our community that PyCon's speaker financial support could be improved. Ernest recently made a change in our process that will help financial support easier on behalf of both the PSF and PyCon speakers. The change Ernest made lives on the speaker profile page us.pycon.org. When potential speakers are completing their speaker profiles, they can check the "I require a speaker grant if my proposal is accepted" option, and the speaker will receive financial support needed if their talk is accepted. Another suggestion came from PSF Director Trey Hunner. Trey pointed out various conferences around the world the PSF can learn from. Furthermore, we discussed that we need to be more transparent about the availability of speaker grants.

An option considered was the possibility of providing all speakers free registration to PyCon. Ultimately we decided on PyCon providing speaker financial assistance to anyone that requests it. The reasoning behind that decision is that PyCon profits help fund the Python Software Foundation's global community giving. Given the significant impact that PyCon profits have, we encourage those that can to pay for their conference registrations. In 2016, the PSF gave out $292,471 in grants worldwide thanks to the revenue generated through PyCon. So far this year (up to Q3), we have given $221,763 and we anticipate to give more than $300,000 in grants next year. 

The below graphs show that PSF international support is increasing. For example in 2017 we increased support in Africa by 13.86% and the year is not over yet. Everyone who contributes to PyCon financially helps us make a global difference.

PSF Grant spending by continent. A clearer view is available here. 


Trademark for PyPI
The next agenda item the board discussed pertained to filing a PyPI trademark. One of the core missions of the PSF is the protection of the Python community – including the safeguarding of Python’s intellectual property. An increasingly important part of Python’s intellectual property are the trademarks and logos we use to identify Python and its associated services to the world. Given the increasing importance of PyPI, the board decided that it would be wise to officially register some PyPI-related trademarks in various places around the world. We discussed the various ways we can file trademark requests and we also reviewed financial quotes from three law firms. We decided to file the logo trademark and also the word mark "PyPI". Van Lindberg will continue working on that process.

Grant Accountability
Since the PSF has continued to fund more grants each year, we discussed the idea of grant accountability. One of our directors, Paul Hildebrandt, is working on an event report template to help us better understand and track the benefit that our grant giving is having on communities that we sponsor. We will report on this issue further as it develops.

Alternative Ways of Giving Money
During this agenda item we discussed the benefits that matching grants may have for the PSF. Eric Holscher brought up the idea that matching grant agreements can help improve PSF's marketing, along with helping the grantee generate more total revenue. Additionally, we discussed the possibility of being proactive with soliciting specific grant types. For example, this would be useful if we wanted to zone in on specific support for Python development work and/or to support Python educators. Jacqueline Kazil, PSF Director, suggested that we make some improvements to our grant policy page by including more reference points for improved guidance. Work on this will continue remotely. We also decided to work on slides we can provide to PSF-funded events that will inform the public about what the PSF does.

Board Role in Fundraising
As part of her efforts to help the foundation mature, PSF Chair Naomi Ceder started a discussion on how board members can more directly help the PSF’s overall financial standing through supporting PSF fundraising efforts. No concrete plans were made, but the board will continue exploring its role under Naomi’s leadership. 

Multi-lingual Blog/Documentation/Website
The PSF's Communication Chair, Lorena Mesa, gathered input from the group on how we can improve our community support by improving our translations efforts. The next step will be to list all of the community assets that could be translated, prioritize them, and get a work group started to help with the efforts. As a part of this effort Lorena is seeking community input on assets of particular importance and community priorities in translation efforts. 

Strategic Planning
The last two hours of the day were dedicated to high-level strategizing, particularly in discussing the future of the PSF.  During this conversation, the PSF decided that, over time, the PSF needs to gradually rebuild and professionalize to permit better efficiency in supporting the global Python community.. Unfortunately we realized that two hours was not enough time to cover everything we would like to discuss. 

Some items we did get to discuss included determining what we wanted our financial reserve to be. Thomas Wouters, the PSF's Vice Chairperson, guided the discussion through various questions and comments pertaining to the types of risks we are facing and the types of things we can do with the financial reserve. We discussed the need to invest our reserve as well. 

Another item briefly addressed included ways the PSF can grow by connecting PyPI to our fundraising efforts. We discussed how we can collaborate with related groups to be more intentional with our grant giving. 

Aside from these future goals, we decided to arrange for nonprofit board training at PyCon 2018. This will help us with expectations and will strengthen the strategic planning process.

Executive Committee
The goal of the October 16th discussions was to begin the process of strategic planning. Even though we are still at the beginning of the process, we did create an Executive Committee to follow this through. Naomi Ceder, Van Lindberg, Thomas Wouters, and I met at the end of the day and decided our next step is to create an Executive Summary of the PSF. We need to have a better grasp of all PSF details before we continue. Our goal is to have it completed by PyCon 2018 so the board members can meet once again and continue the process of strategic planning.

All in all, it was a very productive meeting and we will aim to hold these meetings annually. At future in-person meetings, we will try to have fewer items on the agenda to enable more conversation around each topic. It is surprising how fast an hour goes by when 10 people are contributing to the discussion. Since we don't meet in person often, we all have a lot to say!

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Why Become A PyCon Sponsor?


Sponsors help keep PyCon affordable and accessible to the widest possible audience. Sponsors are what make this conference possible. From low ticket prices to financial aid, to video recording, the organizations who step forward to support PyCon, in turn, support the entire Python community. They make it possible for so many to attend, for so many to be presenters, and for the people at home to watch along.

The benefits of sponsorship are many - here are a few to consider:
  • Being part of the biggest and most prestigious Python conference in the world.

  • Being matched with those who could potentially become clients.

  • Staying in front of your current customers - 3300+ attendees will see your products. 
  • 
Building relationships with the Python community - people look to sponsors to see who is using and supporting Python.

  • Recruiting - if you’re hiring, PyCon is the place to be.

  • A private meeting or interview room to conduct business onsite. 

  • The opportunity for innovators and practitioners in your company to talk about how you’re using Python.

Depending on your level of sponsorship, packages include complimentary conference passes, booth space, lead retrieval scanners, speaking opportunities, and a table in the Job Fair.

We’re flexible and willing to work with you to design the sponsorship package to fulfill your business needs. Starting a discussion now is a great way to design a more custom program for you. Our sponsorship prospectus can be found here: https://us.pycon.org/2018/sponsors/prospectus/

PyCon 2018
Huntington Convention Center May 9th - May 17th, 2018 Cleveland, Ohio USA
For more information please contact: pycon-sponsors@python.org

                                                                  Photo by Mike Pirnat

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Thomas Kluyver, Community Service Award 3rd Quarter 2017 Recipient

People love Python for its ease of use, breadth of modules, and vibrant community. These qualities are made possible by people like Thomas Kluyver who, during the course of his career using Python for scientific research, has identified and implemented various modules, upgrades, and enhancements to Python. He is also an active member of the Python community, attending conferences, participating in his local Python User Group, and contributing his expertise to Python Subreddits.

For these reasons, the Python Software Foundation has awarded Thomas with the Q3 2017 Community Service Award.

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Q3 2017 Community Service Award be given to Thomas Kluyver for his contributions to the Scientific Python Community. Thomas has also served on many other open source projects and is active on the Python subreddit helping many people in the Python community.

Contributions to Scientific Python

Thomas earned his Ph.D. in plant biology at the University of Sheffield in England. As a scientist, Thomas’ interest in programming stemmed from childhood where he learned QBasic with support from his father. During his Ph.D. program, Thomas became a regular contributor to Jupyter/IPython, working single-handedly to port it from Python 2 to Python 3. This caught the attention of Fernando Pérez, creator of IPython and co-founder of Project Jupyter, who just happened to be looking for a post-doc. “Given his amazing contributions even while he was still a student,” says Fernando, “I was looking for an opportunity to engage him more with the project.” Thomas accepted the offer to work with Fernando at UC Berkeley developing IPython and open source tools for science. Looking back Thomas recalls, “it was a great opportunity for me.” Thomas stayed at Berkeley for 2 years before returning to England for a position at the University of Southampton. There he continues to work on Jupyter and IPython and is also involved in the NGCM Summer Academy, teaching scientists a variety of computational skills in Python.

Contributions to Other Open Source Projects

Thomas has worked on a number of tools outside of his profession as well, such as Flit. Flit is a packaging tool which aims to make it simpler to publish your Python code on PyPI. This tool and the concepts it presents have led to discussions about standard interfaces for different packaging tools to work together better, documented in PEP 517 and 518. Nick Coghlan, a CPython core developer who has worked with Thomas in his efforts to help move the Python packaging ecosystem forward, characterizes Thomas contributions to Flit as “rather than just writing it as a standalone tool, Thomas worked hard to ensure that the underlying interoperability standards also evolved to make it easier to write tools like Flit, and that such tools integrate nicely with frontend installation tools like pip.”

Distributing applications to end users is still a weak point for Python, whereas distributing libraries and developer tools have become better equipped to handle this challenge in recent years. That is why Thomas built Pynsist, a tool to build Windows installers for Python applications. Pynsist can even build a Windows installer from a Linux system, which builds on the work of other projects like NSIS. Fernando says, “considering that Thomas is mostly a Linux user, this is a great example of how he does work that has great value to the Python community even beyond his immediate needs.”

Contributions to the Python Community

Thomas is a regular speaker at Python events around the world such as SciPy, PyData, EuroSciPy, and PyCon conferences. He is also involved in his local Southampton Python User Group. “Basically he's all over the community,” says Fernando, “helping others on the mailing lists, working on IPython/Jupyter, building multiple tools of great value to many, and teaching across a variety of spaces.” Fellow Jupyter/IPython developer and Flit collaborator Matthias Bussonnier agrees saying, “Thomas has always cared a lot about community and has spent hours teaching new contributors how to do things, even if it would take him less time to do them himself.”

Why Python?

Working on the Black Python
When asked why Python is his language of choice, Thomas explains, “It's a beginners language, but it's also a language that many experienced programmers are using to solve real problems. I also like the breadth of domains in which Python is used and the strong open source ethos in the community around Python.”

As if Thomas has yet to prove the full breadth of Python’s domains, Thomas recently participated in the World Robotic Sailing Competition. His team entered in their model sailboat, named the Black Python, which carries a Raspberry Pi to control the sails and the rudder. The Black Python took first place in the 'micro sailboat' class both this year and last. Read more about this project on their blog.

Despite these significant accomplishments, Thomas recognizes the support he has gotten over the years recalling, “I've benefited immensely from other people: from my father helping me to learn programming, to the IPython team welcoming me and bringing me into the scientific Python community, to the thousands of programmers whose open source code I've used.”

Community Service Award Winner 2017Q3 Thomas Kluyver

Monday, October 02, 2017

Python Software Foundation Fellow Members for Q3 2017

We are happy to announce our 2017 3rd Quarter Python Software Foundation Fellow Members:

Aisha Bello 
Brian Costlow 
Carol Willing 
Carrie Anne Philbin 
Cory Benfield 
Damien George 
Daniel Pope 
Daniele Procida 
Dusty Phillips 
Jackie Kazil 
Laura Cassell 
Lorena Mesa 
Łukasz Langa 
Peter Inglesby 
Ruben Orduz

Congratulations! Thank you for all of the contributions you continue to make. We have added you to our Fellow roster online. 

The PSF Fellow Work Group was established in July of 2017. This is the first set of Fellows the Work Group has reviewed and voted on. Since we are a new group, we spent a few months establishing policies and criteria.

The work group voted to review nominees 4 times a year:

  • Q1: January to the end of March (01/01 - 31/03) Cut-off for nominations will be February 20. New fellows will be announced before March 31.
  • Q2: April to the end of June (01/04 - 30/06) Cut-off for quarter two will be May 20. New fellows will be announced before June 30.
  • Q3: July to the end of September (01/07 - 30/09) Cut-off for quarter three will be August 20. New fellows will be announced before end of September.

  • Q4: October to the end of December (01/10 - 31/12) Cut-off for quarter four will be November 20. New fellows will be announced before December 31.

In addition to the schedule, we also voted on the following criteria:

  • 
For those who have served the Python community by creating and/or maintaining various engineering/design contributions, the following statement should be true:
    • 
Nominated Person has served the Python community by making available code, tests, documentation, or design, either in a Python implementation or in a Python ecosystem project, that 1) shows technical excellence, 2) is an example of software engineering principles and best practices, and 3) has achieved widespread usage or acclaim.

  • For those who have served the Python community by coordinating, organizing, teaching, writing, and evangelizing, the following statement should be true:
    • 
Nominated Person has served the Python community through extraordinary efforts in organizing Python events, publicly promoting Python, and teaching and coordinating others. Nominated Person's efforts have shown leadership and resulted in long-lasting and substantial gains in the number and quality of Python users, and have been widely recognized as being above and beyond normal volunteering.

  • If someone is not accepted to be a fellow in the quarter they were nominated for, they will remain an active nominee for 1 year for future consideration.

  • It is suggested/recommended that the nominee have wide Python community involvement. Examples would be (not a complete list - just examples):

    • Someone who has received a Community Service Award or Distinguished Service Award
    • A developer that writes (more than one) documentation/books/tutorials for wider audience
.
    • Someone that helps translate (more than one) documentation/books/tutorials for better inclusivity.
    • 
An instructor that teaches Python related tutorials in various regions
.
    • Someone that helps organize local meet ups and also helps organize a regional conference.
  • 
Nominees should be aware of the Python community’s Code of Conduct and should have a record of fostering the community.

  • Sitting members of the PSF Board of Directors can be nominated if they meet the above criteria.
If you would like to nominate someone to be a PSF Fellow, please send a description of their Python accomplishments to psf-fellow at python.org. If you send in your nomination before November 20, it will be considered in Q4. More info is available here.


We are still looking for a few more voting members to join the Work Group. If you are a PSF Fellow and would like to join, please write to psf-fellow at python.org.

Friday, September 29, 2017

A New Python Security Mailing List

The Python community takes security very seriously. In an effort to enhance security and promote transparency about security matters, the Python Security Response Team (PSRT) has created a security-announce mailing list. This mailing list will allow the PSRT to communicate about security-related matters to anyone in the Python community who signs up. Join this list to stay on top of the most recent security fixes to the Python language. Click here to learn more about the mailing list and to sign up!

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Join the Python Developers Survey 2017: Share and learn about the community

2017 is drawing to a close and we are super-excited to start the official Python Developers Survey 2017!

We’ve created this survey specially for Python developers who use it as their primary or supplementary language. We expect the survey findings to help us map an accurate landscape of the Python developer community and to provide insight into the current major trends in the Python community.


Your valuable opinion and feedback will help us better understand how different Python developers use Python and related frameworks, tools and technologies. We also hope you'll have fun going through the questions.

The survey is organized in partnership between the Python Software Foundation and JetBrains. After the survey is over, we will publish the aggregated results and randomly choose 100 winners (from those who complete the survey in its entirety), who will each receive an amazing Python Surprise Gift Pack.

Monday, September 25, 2017

The PyLady Behind PyLadies: Lynn Root, Community Service Award 2nd Quarter 2017 Recipient

PyLadies is an international mentorship community for women that use Python. Started with a grant in 2011, PyLadies has continued to bring women into the Python community through a variety of methods, including hosting events in local PyLadies chapters as well as offering a grant opportunity to attend PyCon. One woman in particular has contributed to PyLadies' success, for which the PSF recognized her as a Community Service Award recipient for the 2nd Quarter of 2017:
RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation Q2 2017 Community Service Award to Lynn Root for her work as the founder of the San Francisco Chapter of PyLadies, a member of the Django Software Foundation, and as a tireless volunteer at PyCon.
PyLadies in the early days, the Start of the San Francisco Chapter

If you can name one person associated with PyLadies, it is Lynn Root. Lynn’s relentless support, organizing, and evangelizing on behalf of PyLadies is known by many. “Lynn’s enthusiasm and passion for bringing more women into tech are well complemented by her organizational skills, which were especially needed at pivotal moment in early PyLadies history. Lynn helped grow PyLadies into, what is now, a global organization that’s had a huge impact on the Python community,” PyLady Esther Nam, one of the founders of the PyLadies Los Angeles chapter, explains.





In late 2011, Lynn began learning to program, as some of graduate programs she was considering required her to have some programming expertise. “I reached out to San Francisco’s Women Who Code to organize a Python study group,” Lynn recalls, trying to find like-minded women to join. She had used Python in a weekend hackathon and found it to be a beginner friendly language. The following year, in 2012, PyCon was held in Santa Clara.  “Lynn reached out and organized a carpool of Bay Area Pythonistas to attend the conference”, Esther remembers. PyLadies from the first chapter in Los Angeles attended, where Lynn met with them to learn more about PyLadies.  The next month, she founded the San Francisco chapter. Lynn continued to act as a principal organizer for PyLadies San Francisco for the next four years.


Growing PyLadies in the Global Community



Overlapping with her time as PyLadies San Francisco lead organizer, Lynn championed other significant projects including the creation of `pip install pyladies`, the PyLadies open source kit for new organizers. The development of open source tools for PyLadies has been instrumental in getting the word out about PyLadies. Lynn was able to use these tools to help start international PyLadies communities in Stockholm, Zagreb, and Brno.

Lynn also took an active role in bringing PyLadies content to PyCon. During Lynn’s first term on the Python Software Foundation Board of Directors in 2013 to 2014, Lynn helped plan and run the first PyLadies Charity Auction at PyCon. Months of work go into organizing the charity auction; it requires donations to be procured beforehand, besides auctioneering on-site. The inaugural PyLadies Charity Auction raised $10,000.00 USD for PyLadies. Commenting in a 2013 press release about the auction, Atlanta PyLadies founder Laura Cassell explains, “we're all so resourceful already that I suspect this money is going to go a long way towards helping women who want to get into the industry. I'm still a little misty-eyed at the whole thing, to be honest."




Besides her PyLadies work, Lynn has been a speaker at PyCon four times, PyCon Lightning Talk Chair since 2014, frequent session runner, and recurring PyCon volunteer.


PyLadies Benevolent Dictator for Life?
I asked Lynn if she has ever been called the PyLadies Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL).  Lynn shook her head, she does not see herself in that fashion. But it is hard to refute the strong footprint she has left on the PyLadies community. Lynn has written several Python open source tutorials, like the web scraping with scrapy and postgres, that are often used in PyLadies workshops and are highly visited (over 65,000 times to date this year!), and has spoken at PyCons around the world: EuroPython, PyCon Finland, and PyCon Brasil. Lynn was the original PyLady I consulted with when starting the PyLadies Chicago chapter in 2014.

From founding her local PyLadies chapter, to volunteering at PyCon, to catalyzing other initiatives like the Django Software Foundation, Lynn has been an unwavering advocate for women in the Python community and for the broader Python community itself. The thing that Lynn says has been most satisfying for her as a Python community organizer and advocate has been the rise of women in Python. “In 2012 only 8% of speakers at PyCon were women now in 2017 we have approximately 33%”.

With the rise of PyLadies at PyCon and throughout the world, it’ll be exciting to see what comes next for the PyLadies community and for those that have helped make PyLadies such a tremendous success.