Proposed unconference topics

Etiene Dalcol

Open Street Mappers

We are pleased to announce that the PSF has hired a part-time Infrastructure Manager. Please join us in welcoming Mark Mangoba!

Mark has a background in IT management and has experience with non-profits. Mark is excited to be part of the team and is ready to lead new PSF infrastructure projects and better support the community volunteers leading existing ones. In his own words, "I look forward to working with our infrastructure team of volunteers to optimize, streamline processes, and to bring enterprise level tech support to the services we provide to the Python community". 

In the coming months, Mark will work on documentation for our infrastructure setup and improvements to the PSF voting process. Later this year, he will work on python.org improvements. It takes a while for any new employee to learn the ropes, but Mark has not wasted any time. He has jumped right in, getting to know our volunteers and working with the PSF. Mark expressed that "its been an amazing experience so far working with the PSF and I am glad to be a part of it!". 

The PSF has visited the idea of improving Python.org usability and our voting system before. We have made incremental improvements, but we didn't have the resources to fully examine all of the existing issues, let alone complete all of them. With Mark on the team, we'll be better equipped to face our current and future challenges.

With our growing team, I'm confident that the PSF will continue to make a positive impact on the Python community in 2016 and beyond. I look forward to working with Mark and seeing all of the wonderful goals he'll help us achieve. 

• Helping get the second redesign working on the staging website
• Working on the new job board with Marc-André Lemburg
• Helping fix bugs on python.org (e.g., corrections to URLS for Python downloads; scrolling issues on landing pages and PEPs)
• Making sure the site uses an up-to-date version of Django
• Committing code to improve the user experience (e.g., adding a feature for updating board minutes on the site; making a change so broken images would not appear; updating the members' section to allow members to edit their profiles, and non-members to sign up; updating membership using django-admin so staff can download member files; updating the PEP RSS feed; updating Open Graph protocol on the website
• Updating contributor documentation describing how to install the GitHub repo and how to contribute to the site
• Improving the contributor experience (e.g., by switching from Chef configuration to Ansible)
• Reviewing and merging community pull requests
• Cleaning-up code

"I still don’t know what I was thinking since I [didn’t] even know enough Python at that moment :). I don’t remember all the names, but Antoine Pitrou, Brett Cannon, Éric Araujo and R. David Murray were really helpful. Brett also merged my first patch to CPython in early 2012."

"Our stack is little bit outdated (Python 3.3 and Django 1.7), and we have a few blockers before switching to the latest releases of Python and Django. We also need to improve community contributions. I have a few ideas, but I couldn’t find enough time to work on them."

Coulson Tough Python Club

6th grader Payton Gwynn

Once again, the PSF is proud to underwrite and produce the largest gathering of the international Python community at PyCon 2016!

The 2016 conference will be held in Portland, Oregon, and will take place from May 28th to June 5th -- a little later in the spring than previous PyCons.

Those of you who have attended previous PyCons know what a fantastic event these are. Education, advocacy, community building. . . all take place at a PyCon. If you've never been, you can check out these talks from last year's PyCon 2015 in Montreal.

But nothing can fully give the full experience, the excitement and flavor, the connections forged and strengthened, the sheer intensity of spending several days with a large community of bright, energetic, and engaged Pythonistas, sharing their knowledge and skills and teaching and learning with each other, as attending a PyCon itself.

The conference schedule will begin on the weekend with tutorials, then there will be five full tracks of talks, over 100 total, during the three main conference days. As usual, development sprints will follow, offering a unique opportunity for developers to work in "dream teams" on open source projects. And of course there will be the Summits, Expo Hall, Poster Session, Sponsor Workshops, Lightning Talks, Open Spaces, Job Fair, PyLadies Auction, and last, but hardly least, the dynamic and inviting "Hallway Track," that make for such a vibrant conference. All of this, along with ample (organized, spontaneous, and even some chaotic) social and cultural activities (including the annual Opening Reception and 5K Charity Run). The venue will be the centrally-located Convention Center which will allow for easy exploration of the fabulous city of Portland, Oregon.

By Another Believer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

As this year's PyCon organizer, Brandon Rhodes, tells us on the PyCon blog,

PyCon offers tremendous value for both individuals and businesses. PyCon’s three main conference days offer keynote speeches, nearly a hundred talks, Open Space rooms for meetings and workshops, and an Expo Hall where you can meet dozens of sponsor companies and open source non-profits. More than 3,000 fans and contributors to Python are expected to attend the conference!

Another feature of PyCons as opposed to other tech conferences that must be mentioned is the diversity of speakers and attendees. For both 2014 and 2015 in Montreal, a full 33% of talks were given by women. Not only does this make for a more varied range of content and a higher degree of excellence (since the work of women programmers contributes to a greater pool of proposals from which the final talks are selected), but for a truly welcoming community. As someone who has attended the last four PyCons (the first of which, before I even became a Python user), I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you come, you will not be disappointed!

And, please, if you're working on something interesting, or care to share some insights, experiences, project development, or theoretical observations, consider proposing a talk, tutorial, or a poster session.

Registration is now open, and, if you hurry, you can qualify for the reduced cost of an Early Bird ticket. If the past is any indication, these tickets, and all remaining ones, will sell-out quickly. Don't be left out! Register today!

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

Last year, the Python Software Foundation adopted an open membership model, allowing anyone that uses and supports Python to become a member of the foundation. Furthering our efforts on this front, the historical psf-members mailing list has been retired, and two new mailing lists have been created in its place: psf-community and psf-vote.

Unlike the old psf-members mailing list, the new psf-community mailing list will be open to all community members, and will have public archives. The new psf-vote mailing list will only be used to administer elections. A more detailed summary of the mailing list changes can be found below, along with the related resolutions from the PSF board meetings.

• The psf-members mailing list has been retired:
• This list will be locked to new posts.
• This list will no longer accept new subscribers.
• The archives will be open to existing list subscribers.

• A new psf-community mailing list has been created:
• All community members may subscribe.
• The archives are public.
• This list is expected to be an active list with courteous, productive, and respectful conversations about community issues and news.
• Example topics: PyCon announcements, PSF board meeting minutes, PSF board member nominations, community awards, outreach and education initiatives, etc
• All current PSF members have been sent an invite to join this mailing list, and anyone is welcome to subscribe to this list (after signing up for a basic membership).

• A new psf-vote mailing list has been created:
• All PSF members with voting privileges may subscribe to this list. This includes the following membership classes: supporting members, sponsor delegates, managing members, contributing members, and fellows.
• The archives will be open to list subscribers.
• This list will be used to administer PSF elections. We have automatically subscribed all current PSF voters. If you unsubscribe from this list, our secretary will reach out to you to confirm that you wish to relinquish your voting rights.
• This list is expected to be a low volume mailing list, containing election details, and discussions that require some privacy and discretion (such as a potential corporate sponsors).

We hope to see you on the new psf-community mailing list – thank you for your contributions to the community!

Approved on July 9, 2015 (meeting minutes):

RESOLVED, that a new psf-community mailing list be created, with public archives, open for all PSF members, including, in particular, all the basic members

NT: during my 20s I was a senior secondary school teacher in the UK - I taught music to teenagers growing up in areas of great poverty and deprivation. As a result I’m passionate about teaching and learning - especially as a vehicle for emancipation. Unsurprisingly, I see programming and technical literacy as such vehicles. This is reinforced because I also have three school aged children.

NT: I’ve been thinking about programming and Python in education for quite a number of years. Given all that’s happening regarding computing education in the UK at the moment, I’ve also had a lot of opportunity to discuss the subject with a large number of teachers and developers and develop my outlook as a result (a process that is ongoing). The first draft of the report only took a weekend to write - although I made time during the following weeks for tidying up and editing (re-reading with fresh eyes is such a useful thing to do).

NT: The philosophical outlook was very much the result of the discussions mentioned in the previous point. I also spent a day at Raspberry Pi Towerschatting with Eben, Carrie Anne and Ben [Editor’s Note: Eben Upton, Carrie Anne Philbin, and Ben Nuttall of the Raspberry Pi Foundation; Carrie Anne was recently elected to the PSF Board of Directors]. 

The case study in the second section is the result. The rest of the book just wrote itself (as it were) and I, of course, was very careful to ensure I was reporting the correct information while referencing others.

NT: I was a senior teacher. I also have an MA in Philosophy of Education and a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education). For the last 4-5 years I’ve organised the PyconUK education track: last year we had 50 teachers and 90 kids turn up. This year will be bigger still. I also founded and help to run the London Python Code Dojo where developers come together to teach and learn from each other (see: http://ntoll.org/article/how-to-run-an-awesome-code-dojo for details of what a dojo is). I also collaborate with teachers on an ad hoc basis - for example, tomorrow I’m at a school in Nottinghamshire to help teach teachers to teach programming. This will be followed by some practical workshops helping a bunch of kids take their first steps as the tame programmer in the room along with all these hopefully newly enthused teachers. ;-)

NT: YES! I always try to imagine who I’m writing for. In this case it was programmers who need an easy to remember source of arguments in favour of Python in education and teachers, students, parents and school board types (i.e. policy makers) who know nothing about computing but who need information in an easy to digest format. I wanted to write a kind of manifesto (but without explicitly calling it one because that has all sorts of connotations) that would expose all the amazing work and progress the Python community has made in the world of education. It’s all about helping people join the dots, make connections and collaborate. By the end of the book I want the reader to want to teach and learn Python. ;-)

Background: 

Q: Why did you get involved?

Q: What is your background/interest as election administration?

Q: What are some of your goals as election administrator?

Q: What are the criteria for a good election process?

• User friendly: The nomination process should be easy as should voting.
• Transparent and Verifiable: Nominations and votes should be verifiable by any one observing the election.
• Secure: It’s unlikely someone might try to attack a PSF election, but users should know that their votes aren’t being altered when casting them and that the ballot they received was correct.
• Well documented: Voters and candidates should know the schedule. The software should be well documented for all involved - candidates, voters, and election administrators alike.
• Cooperative: I have the great pleasure of coordinating with Ewa Jodlowska who helps in the election process. Massimo DiPierro and David Mertz have been very helpful in learning and navigating E-Vote.This whole process would have been a lot more stressful if not for their help and support.

Q: I understand that recent election yielded a tie in the number of votes for the eleventh Director’s seat. How was that resolved?

if random.random() < 0.5:
    print('Candidate A')
else:
    print('Candidate B')

Q: How can we (PSF members) help?

“We chose coding because it leapfrogs over the need for more conventional, expensive and time consuming job skills training… Plus there currently is a high demand in the market for such skilled labour.”

On the psf-members mailing list today, current Director David Mertz expressed some sentiments about increasing diversity in the governance of the foundation that I'd like to share.  Making the Python community, and the Python Software Foundation itself, more diverse, globally and across dimensions of privilege is something we have been striving for very consciously for years. Here's what he wrote (re-posted with his permission):

This year, as for the last bunch of years, I'll be the election administrator in the upcoming election. This will have some candidates for the Board of Directors of the PSF, and probably a few other issues like Sponsor Members approvals or membership resolutions.
    This year, as in past Board elections, I will use "approval voting" again. This will be explained again when you get ballots and announcements here. But the general idea is that each voter can cast as many Approve votes as they wish to for the 11 seats. A voter might vote for only the one candidate they really like to avoid diluting that vote. Or they might vote for every candidate except the one they really don't like as an "anyone but" vote. Or, in most cases, voters will vote for some number of candidates whom they feel generally comfortable with or prefer, and skip voting for any others.
    I give this preface to explain how I intend to vote. I am a white, male, middle-class, middle-aged, cis-gendered, American who has been on the Board for a long while. I may or may not run for it again (my name is on the wiki now with no candidate description, but mostly as a placeholder to get some permission issues sorted out for editing the wiki).
    But what I REALLY want is to have a PSF Board that is less American, less white, less male (and ideally represents diversity along other dimensions also: religious, sexual identities, linguistic, disability, etc). So I earnestly urge any or all PSF members, or their friends and colleagues, or other members of the Python community, or general supporters of Free Software, who might consider serving on the Board to place themselves in nomination, or allow themselves to be so placed.
    Serving on the Board is a genuine commitment of time and effort, and carries a fiduciary obligation. It's not just an item to put on a resume, and I don't want names of Directors from subaltern* groups there just as names alone. But I really do want those names as people who actively participate in making our community both more vigorous and more diverse.
    Which is to say, that for MY own vote, I can pledge to vote Approve to any candidate with a minimal indication of commitment to the selfless, volunteer tasks involved who doesn't look or sound quite so much like myself.
    Please, wonderful potential candidates, step up and let me cast these votes!

[*] In critical theory and postcolonialism, subaltern is the social group who are socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland. In describing "history told from below", the term subaltern derived from Antonio Gramsci's work on cultural hegemony, which identified the social groups who are excluded from a society's established structures for political representation, the means by which people have a voice in their society.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.