Python Software Foundation News

Welcome Newly Elected Members

2013-04-30T11:08:00.001-04:00

The Foundation recently held elections after PyCon 2013, and the results are in!

All members of the PSF are nominated by an existing member for their work in the Python community. We have quite a diverse set of community members joining us this year, with representation across many countries and individuals contributing to many areas of the Python world.

As with years past, a group of individuals known for their contributions of code, either to Python implementations or other projects in the Python ecosystem, were elected. We also have a number of members recognized for their work with PyCon and other Python conferences around the world. Community effort is another theme and we have several members known for their work building and expanding their local Python communities as well as the global community.

Please join us in welcoming all of the new members to the Foundation!

Érico Andrei
Kamon Ayeva
Reimar Bauer
Diana Clarke
Robert Collins
Simon Cross
Katie Cunningham
Kushal Das
Ned Deily
Jeremy Dunck
Emmanuelle Gouillart
Olivier Grisel
Eric Holscher
Mathieu Leduc-Hamel
Chris Neugebauer
Terri Oda
Jason Pellerin
Lynn Root
Osvaldo Santana
Hynek Schlawack
Anthony Scopatz
Barbara Shaurette
Gael Varoquaux
Stefan van der Walt
Stephane Wirtel

The Board of Directors also held elections, and the spots of departing members were filled. The Foundation wishes to thank Steve Holden, Andrew Kuchling, and Martin von Löwis for all of their time devoted to Python, the PSF, and to its board over all of their long tenures with the organization.

Eight board members were re-elected to their positions, and three new members were elected to join the board under Van Lindberg's chairmanship. The new board members are:

Brett Cannon
Alex Gaynor
Lynn Root

The full membership list is available at http://www.python.org/psf/members/.

Congratulations to Fernando Perez, Recipient of FSF’s Advancement of Free Software Award

2013-03-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

On Saturday March 23, Dr. Fernando Perez was presented the Free Software Foundation’s annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his work on IPython. The award “is given annually to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software.”

Fernando, who was elected to the PSF in 2010, received the award at LibrePlanet 2013, which took place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He dedicated the award to the late John Hunter, creator of matplotlib, who passed away last August. John was posthumously awarded the Foundation’s Distinguished Service Award.

The Foundation congratulates Fernando on his great work on IPython and his efforts all around the community!

For more information, see the FSF’s announcement: https://www.fsf.org/news/2012-free-software-award-winners-announced-2

Farewell Malcolm

2013-03-20T13:15:00.001-04:00

While we celebrated the Python community last week at PyCon, we quietly lost one of our own. Malcolm Tredinnick, core Django developer and longtime member of the PSF passed away this past weekend.

Malcolm embodied the type of ideals that we all strive for in the Python community. He was known both for his code and for his kindness, for his intelligence and his humanity. Malcolm was a regular in the #django channel on IRC. It might have been intimidating to new users to be chatting with the author of the Django ORM, but he always took the time to put people at ease and answer their questions.

We are grateful to have known Malcolm. We will miss him.

As Barbara Shaurette wrote:

"""
I encourage everyone to honor Malcolm's memory by following his example.

Submit that patch for a Django ORM ticket that you've putting off for a while.

Go into #django and help some new users.

Answer questions. Be nice.
"""

Memorial page on Storify
Official announcement on the Django website

Python Software Foundation Reaches Settlement, Ends Trademark Dispute

2013-03-18T13:59:00.002-04:00

via Marketwire

The Python Software Foundation has reached a settlement in its recent trademark dispute with PO Box Hosting Limited trading as Veber in Europe. The issue centered around Veber's use of the Python name for their cloud hosting services and their application for a figurative trademark incorporating the word "Python". While the Foundation retains the trademark for Python within the United States, it did not have a filing within the European Union. According to the terms of the settlement, Veber has withdrawn its trademark filing and has agreed to support the Python Software Foundation's use of the term.

The amicable agreement reached between the two sides will result in a rebranding of Veber's Python cloud server and backup services, which continue to be available at http://www.veber.co.uk. Veber will rebrand the Python services later under a yet to be determined name.

"We are happy to come to an agreement with Veber," said Van Lindberg, chairman of the Python Software Foundation. "What the PSF wants most is to support the global community of Python developers. To Veber's credit, they were willing to recognize the Python brand without protracted negotiations. We are grateful for Veber's support and we wish them luck in their business."

Tim Poultney, Managing Director of PO Box Hosting and Veber, said, "Veber are pleased to have reached a speedy and amicable agreement with the Python Software Foundation. The use of the Python name for our cloud server and backup business has ceased with the services now available in Europe from Veber. This agreement will remove potential confusion between the Python software language and our cloud services business."

The Foundation thanks the Python community for their immense outpouring of support throughout the dispute, both financially and through the letter writing campaign undertaken by organizations across European Union member states.

Get ready for Google Summer of Code

2013-03-05T11:03:00.000-05:00

Python project contributors and student enthusiasts, mark your calendars: Google Summer of Code applications open soon!

Google Summer of Code is an annual, global program pairing student developers with mentors in open source projects for paid summer internships.

You can learn more about this year's Google Summer of Code here.

Python projects

Python serves as an umbrella organization for around a dozen open source Python projects each year. Last year Python core, mailman, Pandas, PyGame, Pylons, PySide, PySoy, scikit-learn, statsmodels, Tryton, and Twisted participated.

If your Python project is interested in participating in Google Summer of Code under the Python umbrella, it's time to start preparing your applications:

Tell the Python Google Summer of Code coordinators that your project wants to participate! Follow the instructions on the Python wiki.
Review last year's projects and their idea pages.
Start outlining candidate student projects. Good student projects are detailed, can be broken down into step-by-step goals, and are realistic in scope and difficulty for a 3-month student intern.
Start gathering mentors. We recommend that each student have both a primary and backup mentor.

Important deadlines

March 18: Mentoring organizations can begin submitting applications to Google.
March 29: Mentoring organization application deadline.

Students

Google Summer of Code is a paid summer internship program for college/university students who will be 18 years of age or older on May 27, 2013. Participating in Google Summer of Code is a great way to develop real-world software engineering skills while giving back to an open source Python project you love.

Read more about eligibility in the FAQ.

If you are interested in participating in Google Summer of Code under the Python umbrella, it's time to start exploring potential projects and practicing the tools of open source development:

Read the Python Google Summer of Code guidelines.
Review last year's projects and their idea pages.
Start practicing the tools of open source development, including:
- IRC
- a revision control system like git or svn
- the diff and patch utilities
- bug trackers

If you've never used some of these tools before, don't worry! You have plenty of time to practice. A good resource for getting familiar with these tools is the OpenHatch training missions.

Important deadlines

April 8: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on theGoogle Summer of Code 2013 site.
April 9 - 21: Student applicants discuss application ideas with mentoring organizations.
April 22: Student application period opens.
May 3: Student application deadline.

Note that the best way to boost your chances of being accepted for Google Summer of Code is to start contributing to a project before you apply. If you have questions about how to get started or just want some friendly encouragement, visit the OpenHatch project and say hello.

Introducing Electronic Contributor Agreements

2013-03-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

We're happy to announce the new way to file a contributor agreement: on the web at http://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/.

Through the use of Adobe's EchoSign, we got rid of the old hand-written, print out, scan or photograph, then fax or email of your form. It was a hassle for our contributors, and a hassle for our administrators. Faxes fail, mail gets lost, and sometimes pictures or scans turn out poorly. It was time to find a more user-friendly solution, and the Foundation is happy to finally offer this electronic form.

The new form is easy to fill out right on the site, guiding you through each of the required fields such as your name, bug tracker ID, address, and initial license. If you're signing the form on behalf of an organization, there's a check box to specify this, and then you are asked near the bottom to state your title in the organization. Lastly, your signature is either generated from your typed name, or you can draw your own or upload a signature file of your own.

Once you submit the form, you'll receive an email from echosign.com to verify the email address you entered. Once you click to confirm your address, the form will be emailed to the PSF and will be recorded.

We require all contributors to CPython to have a signed form, and we hope this makes it easier for potential contributors to join up and help make Python better. It's available just in time for PyCon and the CPython sprint that will be occurring March 18 through 21 in Santa Clara, California. Join us at the sprint, sign your contributor form, and help us fix some bugs or add some features!

An Update on Our Trademark Issue

2013-02-19T13:35:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, we reached out for help to gather evidence about the use of “Python” in Europe. We received an overwhelming response from the community, with hundreds of letters from individuals, companies, and universities, as well as scans of articles, book covers, conference T-shirts, and brochures. It has been truly been amazing to see.

Unfortunately, we also saw that there were a few who decided to directly attack the people and the company we are opposing. We put out a call for civility - and we want to emphasize that any hacktivism or threats will end up hurting the Python community in the long run. This is not who we are or how we act.

Although the issues have not yet been resolved, we are engaged in good-faith negotiations with the head of Veber, and we hope and expect that we will be able to announce a settlement soon.

Signed,

Van Lindberg
Chairman, Python Software Foundation

Asking for civility during our trademark dispute

2013-02-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

When we first announced our trademark issues yesterday, we immediately and continually received a great outpouring of support from our community. The number of supporting emails in our inbox is tremendous, and the financial support has been incredible. For this, we thank all of you.

However, it has come to our attention that the organization with which we are currently involved in a trademark dispute has been receiving messages from our community members, including threats. We ask that no matter who you support in this matter, that you remain civil in your communications and actions.

It is important that we maintain the positive and friendly atmosphere that Python is known for regardless of the situation at hand.

Python trademark at risk in Europe: We need your help!

2013-02-14T13:31:00.001-05:00

For a French translation of this post, click here.

For anyone who works in a company that has an office in a EU Community member state, we need your help.

There is a company in the UK that is trying to trademark the use of the term "Python" for all software, services, servers... pretty much anything having to do with a computer. Specifically, it is the company that got a hold on the python.co.uk domain 13 years ago. At that time we weren't looking a lot at trademark issues, and so we didn't get that domain.

This hasn't been an issue since then because the python.co.uk domain has, for most of its life, just forwarded its traffic on to the parent companies, veber.co.uk and pobox.co.uk. Unfortunately, Veber has decided that they want to start using the name "Python" for their server products.

We contacted the owners of python.co.uk repeatedly and tried to discuss the matter with them. They blew us off and responded by filing the community trademark application claiming the exclusive right to use "Python" for software, servers, and web services - everywhere in Europe.

We got legal counsel in the UK and we (the PSF) are opposing the community trademark application, but our own trademark application hasn't yet matured. Accordingly, we are going with the trademark rights we have developed through using "Python" consistently over the past 20 years.

According to our London counsel, some of the best pieces of evidence we can submit to the European trademark office are official letters from well-known companies "using PYTHON branded software in various member states of the EU" so that we can "obtain independent witness statements from them attesting to the trade origin significance of the PYTHON mark in connection with the software and related goods/services." We also need evidence of use throughout the EU.

What can you do?
1. Do you work for a company that uses Python? Are in the EU, do you hire in the EU, or do you have an office in the EU? Could you write a letter on company letterhead that we can forward to our EU counsel?

We would want:

just a brief description of how Python is used at your company,
how your company looks for and recognizes "Python" as only coming from the PSF, and
your view that another company using term Python to refer to services, software, and servers would be confusing

This doesn't need to be long - just a couple of paragraphs, but we would want any description of how you use Python for software, web hosting, Internet servers, VPNs, design and development of computer hardware or software, hosting websites, renting servers (like Openstack), or backup services. For those who are interested the specific class descriptions are at the bottom of this message. [1][2]

You can send a PDF copy of the letter to psf-trademarks@python.org

2. Do you have, or know of, anything that was published in the EU and uses "Python" to refer to Python-the-language? Can we get copies, pictures, or scans? This includes:

Books
Pamphlets
Conference programs or talks
Job listings
Magazines or other publications
Prospectuses

You can send a PDF scan of the materials to psf-trademarks@python.org

3. You can also help protect the Python intellectual property with financial support.

Since the costs of a trademark opposition are in the range of tens of thousands of dollars, we will need to find a way to refinance the legal costs of the opposition.

Please consider donating to the Python Software Foundation at:

http://www.python.org/psf/donations/

or get in touch with me directly.

This is the first time the PSF has to take legal action to protect Python's intellectual property. Please do consider helping the PSF in any way you can. The threat is real and can potentially harm your business in Europe, especially if you are in the web hosting business and provide Python as part of your hosting plans.

Please let me know if there are any questions that I can answer. If you know someone who might have this information, please feel free to forward this.

Thanks,

Van Lindberg, Chairman
van@python.org
Python Software Foundation

[1] Class 9 - Computer software; Servers for web hosting; VPN [virtual private network] hardware; Internet servers; Internet servers.

[2] Class 42 - Design and development of computer hardware and software; Website hosting services; Hosting computer sites [websites]; Hosting the websites of others; Hosting of websites; Hosting the web sites of others on a computer server for a global computer network; Hosting websites on the Internet; Hosting the web sites of others; Web hosting services; Hosting of digital content, namely, on-line journals and blogs; Application service provider [ASP], namely, hosting computer software applications of others; Website hosting services; Hosting of digital content on the internet; Hosting of web sites; Hosting web sites; Hosting web sites for others; Hosting websites of others; Hosting of internet sites; Hosting the computer sites (web sites) of others; Web site hosting services; Hosting computer sites [web sites]; Hosting web sites of others; Rental of web servers; Servers (rental of web-); Servers (Rental of Web -).

"Software Wars" the movie - featuring Python!

2013-01-16T11:56:00.001-05:00

As the Software Wars indiegogo campaign comes to a close in the last 40 hours, did you know Python plays a role in the movie? Creator Keith Curtis wrote to us to mention that William Stein, creator of Sage, is interviewed and endorses Python's use for teaching mathematics to children. There are also plans to interview others in the community, perhaps some of the children making use of Python.

The creators greatly appreciate your contributions to make Software Wars possible!

wiki.python.org Compromised

2013-01-07T22:12:00.001-05:00

On December 28th, an unknown attacker used a previously unknown remote code exploit on http://wiki.python.org/. The attacker was able to get shell access as the "moin" user, but no other services were affected.

Some time later, the attacker deleted all files owned by the "moin" user, including all instance data for both the Python and Jython wikis. The attack also had full access to all MoinMoin user data on all wikis. In light of this, the Python Software Foundation encourages all wiki users to change their password on other sites if the same one is in use elsewhere. We apologize for the inconvenience and will post further news as we bring the new and improved wiki.python.org online.

If you have any questions about this incident please contact jnoller@python.org. Thank you for your patience.

A Look Back at the PSF in 2012

2013-01-02T12:41:00.000-05:00

2012 year was a good year for Python, and it was especially good for the Python Software Foundation. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights of the foundation’s actions in 2012. As always, you can find out about the resolutions that the board has passed at http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/resolutions/ and each meeting of the board of directors has minutes posted at http://www.python.org/psf/records/board/minutes/.

Conference Sponsorship

The foundation sponsored 18 conferences in 15 countries for a total of USD $32,661.53. Among those funded were a group of established conferences, and something we’re always happy to find out about: new conferences. The inaugural PyCarolinas, and PyCons in South Africa, Philippines, and Canada were newcomers to the conference scene, along with RuPy Brazil starting a new branch of the RuPy brand.

The following conferences were granted funding in the 2012 calendar year:

PyCon Australia

Kiwi PyCon

PyArgentina

EuroPython

PythonBrazil

PyOhio

SciPy

PyCon DE

PyCon UK

PyCon India

PyCon Philippines

PyCon PL

PyCon ZA

PyArkansas

PyCon Canada

PyData

RuPy Brno

RyPy Brazil

Code of Conduct

In keeping up with the current conference scene, the foundation moved to suggest that all conferences implement a Code of Conduct for their events. Many conferences have done so on their own, and the foundation agreed that it’s a good thing for all conferences to have in place.

A second resolution was passed, making it a requirement that PSF-funded conferences have a Code of Conduct in place. The foundation wants to support conferences that support their attendees, so the move was a natural fit.

Community Service Awards

Each quarter, the foundation selects one or two community members to be presented with a Community Service Award. The award aims to reward those who have made substantial contributions to the Python community, with the recipient receiving a certificate and either a free pass to PyCon or USD $500.

This year’s winners were:

Q1: Audrey Roy and Carl Trachte

Q2: Doug Hellmann and Thomas Heller

Q3: Simon Cross and Kenneth Gonsalves

Q4: Antoine Pitrou and Stefan Krah

Distinguished Service Award

Matplotlib’s creator and longtime maintainer, John Hunter, passed away in August of 2012 after a brief battle with cancer. John’s contributions not only to Python but to computing, mathematics, and science, have changed the way people do things. His matplotlib project has existed for over 10 years, initiated during his post-doctoral studies while looking for alternatives to proprietary products in the same field, and his dedication to free software never faded throughout his leadership of the project. His efforts also extended into the recently created NumFOCUS Foundation, of which he was a member of the board.

When John passed away, the foundation wanted to do something for John’s significant achievements, thus the creation of the Distinguished Service Award and the choosing of him as the first recipient. The award is to be presented annually to a member of the community who has exhibited long lasting contributions of high impact, coming with a prize of USD $5,000.

The award was presented to John’s family at a memorial service at his alma mater, University of Chicago.

Frank Willison Memorial Award

Each year the foundation recommends the recipient of the annual Frank Willison Memorial Award, an award delivered in conjunction with O’Reilly Media to commemorate O’Reilly’s long time editor-in-chief and Python fan, Frank Willison, who passed away in 2001.

The 2012 recipient of the award was Jesse Noller, whose outstanding efforts have reached many areas of the Python community. Jesse began as a CPython contributor and has since gotten involved in PyCon, acting as the Program Committee chair in 2010 and 2011, and the conference chair in 2012 and 2013. His leadership of the 2012 conference lead to the breaking of just about every record, from sponsorship counts to talk proposals received, on up through attendance and into revenues. However, Jesse’s efforts extend far beyond CPython and PyCon, into the creation of many efforts around the Python community.

Hardware

One of the first actions of the year was approval for hardware purchases to replace an aging python.org infrastructure, thanks to a donation by Atlassian. Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab offered their services for hosting the new hardware, and for their services and commitment to open source, a donation of $3000 was made to them.

A few months later, the purchase of a long-term storage array was approved for use by the PSF and the Django Software Foundation, to be maintained by long-time PyCon video coordinator, Carl Karsten. Carl stores several terabytes of conference video from events such as PyCon, PyOhio, PyTexas, and other events.

Sponsor Members

While the foundation is made up mostly of individual members, sponsor members are a class of membership for organizations who make a yearly contribution to the foundation. Like any other members, sponsor members are put before the current membership for election, after being recommended to the membership by the board of directors.

2012 saw four organizations recommended and then approved by the membership:

Lincoln Loop

Hood Media GmbH

Globo.com

Dreamhost

Event Coordinator and Secretary

As the conference landscape has grown, not just with PyCon, the foundation’s largest event, but with events around the globe, the need arose for a dedicated employee to organize and work with the existing volunteers. Ewa Jodlowska, who formerly worked with a conference organization company, was hired to manage the logistics of a conference the size of PyCon and to assist the chairman in ensuring a successful and smooth event.

After a few months in this position, Ewa expanded her role to include secretarial duties for the foundation.

Conference Kits

As the foundation found itself sponsoring plenty of conferences this year, many which include booth space in an expo hall, several “conference kits” were purchased that could be sent around the world and used by members at the conference to represent the foundation. So far the kits have made their way to a few conferences since their purchase. If you see one at a conference near you, stop by and say hello!

http://i.imgur.com/ndVhW.jpg

Funding

The foundation has long held an open call for grant requests, and this year three were approved.

In April, the board approved a USD $5,000 request from Armin Rigo of the PyPy team for work on their Software Transactional Memory project. October saw the passing of a USD $5,000 grant to the developers of Kivy, a multi-touch framework, to assist in their efforts to port the project to Python 3. Also on the topic of Python 3 porting was a USD $1,000 grant for Mikhail Korobov to work with NLTK maintainer Steven Bird to complete their port of the library.

For more information about the foundation’s grant program, see http://www.python.org/psf/grants/.

Raspberry Pi

In April a resolution was passed that the foundation would purchase 50 Raspberry Pi devices, to use as raffle prizes, to give to interested projects, and for other uses to allow the device to see wider use in the hands of Python users. Several have been given away, including most recently that one will be added to the Snakebite testing environment, which will then be added to CPython’s buildbot fleet.

New Website

After a request for proposal period over the summer, a redesign committee deliberated over the selections and suggested to the foundation’s board a combination bid between Revolution Systems, Project Evolution, and Divio to design and implement a new python.org. Work is currently underway, and Jesse Noller wrote about the project’s progress on November 28.

The redesign project was a long time in the making, and the RFP process went smoothly. The progress we’re seeing so far has been excellent and we’re looking forward to presenting the finished project.

Overall, it was a great year, and we’re looking forward to an even better 2013. You can make it even better by making a contribution to the foundation at http://www.python.org/psf/donations/!

Antoine Pitrou chosen for Q4 Community Service Award

2012-12-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

On December 19, the Python Software Foundation’s board voted to present Antoine Pitrou with a Community Service Award for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Antoine has been a prolific CPython contributor throughout his more than five years of work, with his efforts reaching many areas of the code. His improvements to CPython’s global interpreter lock, or GIL, in the fall of 2009 caught a lot of attention around the web. He was also a major contributor to Python 3’s I/O system for the 3.0 release, and his recent work on PEP 3151 to rework the OS and IO exception hierarchy was shipped in the 3.3 release.

His activity extends throughout the codebase and development process, where he’s active in bug triage and spends time in IRC. On top of the over 3000 commits made by Antoine since gaining access in June 2008, making him the seventh most active committer, he has been involved in several parts of the python.org infrastructure, including CPython’s buildbot system.

The Python Software Foundation and Python community thanks Antoine for his consistent efforts and excellent contributions!

Stefan Krah chosen for Q4 Community Service Award

2012-12-20T12:36:00.002-05:00

On December 19, the Python Software Foundation’s board voted to present Stefan Krah with a Community Service Award for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Stefan has been a CPython committer since April 2010 when his work on a C version of the decimal module was tracked in a Subversion branch tied to issue #7652, though his work began far before that. Stefah created the mpdecimal C library, an implementation of the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification, as a multi-platform project providing “correctly-rounded arbitrary precision decimal floating point arithmetic.” The cdecimal module utilizes mpdecimal to provide a much more performant decimal library for Python.

The code was checked in early this year in changeset 7355550d5357, in time for the release of CPython 3.3. As the What’s New in Python 3.3 document shows, cdecimal has proven to be significantly faster with speedups as high as 120x on a pi calculation benchmark. The mpdecimal quickstart page shows how to execute the code yourself, and even the telecom and database tests show speedups of 30x and 12x, respectively.

Stefan has also contributed to several other areas of the codebase, including work on PEP 3118 for Python 3.3. He also contributes changes to platforms such as HP-UX and AIX.

The Python Software Foundation and Python community thanks Stefan for his consistent efforts and excellent contributions!

PSF Moves to Require Code of Conduct for Conference Grants

2012-12-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, November 21, the Python Software Foundation’s board of directors voted on two resolutions on the topic of Codes of Conduct at Python conferences. As the Python conference landscape grows to include more events and attract more attendees, the Foundation looks to ensure that conferences, new and old, are being run in a way that is enjoyable for all.

The first resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s recommendation that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. The board unanimously agreed on this point, suggesting that publicly documented expectations and plans of action are necessary when planning and running an event in our community.

The second resolution passed by the board serves as the Foundation’s requirement that all Python conferences and related events create and apply a Code of Conduct. Without a code in place, the Foundation will not fund the event.

PyCon US, the largest of the Python conferences, first implemented a Code of Conduct for the March 2012 conference. For PyCon 2013, the code was left the same, but comes with the addition of documented incident handling guidelines. Many conferences followed suit to add a code, such as PyOhio, pyArkansas, PyTexas, PyCon Canada, and others.

PyCon’s Code of Conduct is structured after one created by The Ada Initiative and others, available under the Creative Commons Zero license at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy.

python.org is getting a makeover!

2012-11-28T02:08:00.000-05:00

It is with great pride that on behalf of the Python Software Foundation and the community as a whole, I am pleased to announce that the official Python.org website, sub-sites, and back-end architecture are getting a total makeover.

Introduction

Python has grown significantly in the last few years, both in terms of audience and the amount of topical information about it. This abundance of information has outgrown the current website’s taxonomy and fundamental design.

The key goal of the redesign project is to update Python’s official web presence with an eye towards better organizing the information we have today, and expect to add in the future.

The end result aims to help our audience find the information they need whether it’s official information like downloads and documentation, or resources from our vibrant community.

Although the current implementation of the Python website has served its purpose over the years, the time has come for the site to progress and complement the growth and maturity of the language itself as well as the vibrancy of the community.

There’s a lot we want to achieve

Modern design and experience
Concise and intuitive navigation
Showcase the simplicity and elegance of the language
Attract and convert potential Python users and Python Software Foundation sponsors
Represent our vibrant, active community
Make it easy for a wide range of contributors to add content
Enhance the visibility of the PSF and its sponsors
Provide examples of success stories
Enhance the visibility of alternate implementations
Stable and scalable infrastructure

The redesign involves some tall tasks. From the fresh and modern UI/UX to the online and offline content editing features, no aspect of the project is to be taken lightly, or even incrementally. Such approaches have stalled and ultimately failed in the past, and rapidly outstrip the free time our community of volunteers can dedicate to the project.

The Process

This is a process that started over two years ago with the drafting of the of the Request For Proposals. This year we issued it publicly, and since that time the psf-redesign team grew to include Nick Coghlan, Doug Hellmann, Idan Gazit, Steve Holden, Brian Curtin, Andrew Kuchling, Issac Kelly, Katie Cunningham, Noah Kantrowitz and others.

The team received seven bids in total - all of them which included strong points and compelling stories. The team deliberated, ranked, discussed, and asked questions of the bidders, working through the bids for several months. We were constantly impressed by the high quality, well thought out, professional work that the community members submitted to us.

After the review period came to a close, we had a single bid which ranked higher than any of the others, based on experience, references, and overall quality of the proposal. They'll be working with the second highest rated bid, which contained UI/UX and IA that absolutely floored the reviewers.

The first bid, submitted by a joint effort between Project Evolution and Revolution Systems, was the overall highest ranked bid. The team was unanimous in our recommendation to proceed forward with this bid based on the credentials of the team, quality of the proposal, and their deep understanding of how to work with volunteer organizations, oversight and the community as a whole.

This bid provides a clear project management and accountability system as well as detailing how they wish to work with the community as a whole to achieve the project goals.

Second, we had the Divio.ch team bid. The IA/UX/UI work which they poured over 120 hours into as a company impressed us a great deal. We were quite literally floored by the amount of thought, planning, and work invested in the visual and IA aspects of the Divio bid.

Together with Project Evolution and Revolution Systems leading the project, and the stellar Divio team consulting on the visual/IA aspects of the project, the redesign team and the board is sure that we will be able to deliver a next generation experience. The architecture being developed will achieve all of the goals we set forth when we went down the path of drafting the redesign RFP.

On September 26th, the Python Software Foundation's board of directors unanimously approved the combined bids:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation accept the Python.org site redesign proposal set forth by Project Evolution / Revolution Systems and Divio with a budget not to exceed $70,000 in total without further board approval.

Overview of the Accepted Bids

The redesign project will completed by the three teams, Project Evolution, RevSys, and Divio, with a division of labor using the best aspects of each team. The project plan and the back end will be handled by members of Project Evolution and RevSys. Members of Project Evolution will handle the front end work, incorporating the guidance of the Divio team.

The accepted bids from the three entities can be found below:

Project Evolution

Project Evolution (PE) is a design driven development team founded in 1999 with clients ranging from school districts to Fortune 1000 fashion conglomerates with international holdings. The 12-person team includes creative leads, front-end and back-end developers, and associated support staff all committed to open-source technology.

Revolution Systems

Revolution Systems, LLC., based in Lawrence, Kansas, was formed in 2002 by Frank Wiles to help businesses benefit from open source software. While many large organizations use open source software internally (sometimes without their knowledge), he realized that many organizations did not know how to properly take advantage of this revolutionary type of software.

Divio

Divio, a web agency located in Zürich, Switzerland, builds web applications and is specialised in the areas of design and development. For production, Divio uses the Django web framework and is heavily involved in the development of the successful open source projects django CMS and django SHOP.

The company relies on the agile SCRUM-methodology for its projects.

Screenshots, Maybe?

As if the bids and the prospect of the project were not enough to get you excited, I thought I might share some tidbits from the current mockups we're working through:

In Closing

I am sincerely proud, as both a Python community member and PSF director, to have been part of this process. The entire review team, every single submitted bid, and the Foundation's board works tirelessly for a great deal of time pulling together what is already turning out to be an impressive and surprising redesign.

The design will work on mobile devices. It will follow all of the guidelines of the RFP, support accessibility requirements, and much much more.
Most of all, it will showcase our language and global community like it has never has been before.

Jesse Noller (person post on this), Director Python Software Foundation, on behalf of the entire team.

Grants to Assist Kivy, NLTK in Porting to Python 3

2012-11-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

From time to time, the Python Software Foundation receives grant requests for projects wishing to receive assistance to complete some task. In the past, grants have gone towards aspects of the PyPy project and the email6 redesign, and have even financed the creation of a new developer guide. Whether it’s a project central to the Python language or any of the great projects this community has created, the PSF is there for all and accepts requests from any projects that provide benefit to the Python community.

Requestors are asked to provide answers to questions such as a project background, what work will be completed, who will be involved, who will benefit, and costs associated with the work. The requests then go before the board of directors, who then debate various aspects of each request and render a decision.

The last two months were very interesting for the board, as we received two requests to help finance the porting of projects to Python 3.

Kivy

In October, the Kivy project reached out to us with a request to fund their porting efforts, where they requested a grant of $5,000 USD. Their plan includes the porting a number of Kivy project dependencies (their Android and iOS tools), the porting of a number of third-party dependencies (e.g., PIL, gstreamer, opencv), some work on their OSX and Windows packaging, and of course, the core Kivy codebase.

On October 17, the board voted to approve the Kivy request. Their porting effort hopes to be a great story for Kivy and Python 3 on a number of platforms and interfaces, as Kivy supports development of applications for desktops, tablets, and phones, and includes support for multi-touch. We’re really looking forward to sharing more details as the Kivy port moves along.

NLTK

Just a few weeks ago, a request came before the board to fund porting efforts for the NLTK project. NLTK is the Natural Language Toolkit, a project which exposes very powerful linguistics tools to Python. For many, NLTK is one of the major remaining roadblocks to Python 3 adoption. As many projects have been ported and many more are working on it, getting NLTK on Python 3 will be huge for the community.

On November 21, Mikhail Korborov was granted $1,000 USD to finish the in-progress port of NLTK under the watchful eye of project lead Steven Bird. Mikhail was recently added as a committer to the project after some time as a contributor, and he’ll be following their plan as laid out on their GitHub repo. Not only will the NTLK port be a boon to wider Python 3 adoption, but it should provide a good story for others to lean on when porting large codebases, especially when it comes to working with Python 3’s Unicode implementation.

We hope you’re as excited as we are to see Kivy and NLTK making moves towards Python 3! We’ll follow up with progress reports as we receive them.

Simon Cross Awarded Community Service Award

2012-10-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

On Friday, Python Software Foundation administrator Ewa Jodlowska presented Simon Cross with the PSF’s Community Service Award for the third quarter.

Photo by Morgan Collett

The award was presented at the first PyCon South Africa in Cape Town, of which Simon is the lead organizer. Simon and team were able to start from the ground up and build a solid conference with a very nice schedule, including many of the community’s best speakers. They even brought in ten sponsors to help keep the conference costs low, including the PSF.

Simon is also a leader in the Cape Town Python User Group, a group which often meets to discuss hot topics in the Python world. Along with talks, the group has been getting together to hack on projects they all use. In 2010 and 2011, the PSF sponsored sprints lead by Simon and crew to port matplotlib and Genshi to Python 3. The matplotlib code was merged but not yet released by the project, and Genshi has been available on Python 3 since shortly after their sprint.

Simon’s efforts also extend around the Python community, where he’s a maintainer of Genshi and contributes to PyPy, among other projects.

The PSF wishes to thank Simon for his efforts with PyCon ZA and everything else he does for the Python community.

Kenneth Gonsalves Posthumously Awarded Community Service Award

2012-10-05T11:30:00.000-04:00

The Python Software Foundation, represented by director David Mertz, posthumously awarded Kenneth Gonsalves with the foundation’s Community Service Award for the third quarter. The award was presented to his daughter last weekend at PyCon India.

Kenneth passed away on August 3, 2012 at the age of 59. After finding the open source world in 1995, he was drawn to the Python community in 2003 and has since taught over 50 seminars on Python and Django in his area. He was also a major contributor to many mailing lists, generously helping as many people as he could.

Kenneth was known for founding and leading the Indian Python Software Society, and is credited with helping to shape the Python community all across India. He was also a well known member of the Django community, where his presence and action will surely be missed.

Outside of software, Kenneth took interest in golf, even becoming a referee and earning international certification. Throughout his time as an official he was assigned to several national tournaments.

In addition to the Community Service Award, the foundation presented a grant of $3500 USD (~190K Rs) to the IPSS to seed an award in Kenneth’s name. The award is planned to be given annually to a community member who goes above and beyond to evangelize, innovate, and mentor other members of the Python community. As much of Kenneth’s work was focused on students, the IPSS wants to see further efforts in growing their community and educating the membership.

Kenneth Gonsalves -- 1952-2012

Photo by Kushal Das

Announcing the 2012 Distinguished Service Award - John Hunter

2012-09-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

The Distinguished Service Award

The Python Software Foundation voted unanimously on September 12, 2012 to authorize the creation of a new award: the Distinguished Service Award. The award is offered in recognition of long-term excellence in the Python community, and is intended to stand as the Foundation's highest honor. Whether for contributions of code, activism, evangelism, or for other services to Python and its global community, the Foundation seeks to honor those who have a record of sustained and prolific giving to the Python world.

The award will not be made to a schedule, but as deserving candidates emerge. It comes with a check for $5,000, in simple recognition of the kind of devoted service for which the award will be presented.

Full details of the award, and a list of recipients, can be found on the Foundation's awards page.

The First Recipient

The inaugural recipient of the Distinguished Service Award is John Hunter, who passed away on August 28, 2012 after losing an all-too-brief battle with colon cancer.

He is survived by his wife Miriam and three daughters Clara, Ava, and Rahel. To mark his passing, the NumFOCUS Foundation has setup a memorial fund for the care and education of his three daughters at http://numfocus.org/johnhunter/.

John Hunter

There are few projects in the Python world which have enjoyed the reach, longevity, and value that matplotlib has offered in the 10 years since its creation. John Hunter, at the time a post-doctoral neurobiologist at the University of Chicago, started the matplotlib library as a way to work around downtime created by limited licensing for expensive proprietary tools. His choice to use Python was a bold one at the time, given Python's relatively young age, especially within the sciences. However, his efforts paid off and he was able to create an open alternative to allow him to continue analyzing epileptic seizure data in children without the limitations he was experiencing with other products.

Over time, John left the academic world and entered Chicago's finance industry, taking employment at TradeLink Securities. While there, he took his science background and matplotlib project into the field of quantitative analysis. In the ten years since matplotlib's creation, John brought three daughters into the world and cared for his family all while maintaining the number one spot on the matplotlib committer list. He became further involved in the numeric and scientific communities, presenting at conferences and expanding his involvement to the recently formed NumFOCUS Foundation, at which he was a founding board member.

John's creation and contribution of matplotlib to not just the Python community, but to the science and mathematics communities, is truly an effort that will live on and continue to influence these communities and more for many years to come. Whether you found Python through matplotlib or matplotlib through Python, John Hunter's efforts have left a lasting mark on so many people in so many places.

In addition to the Distinguished Service Award, the Foundation will be contributing $3500 to a project which is currently in the works, the John Hunter Technical Fellowship. More details on this will follow.

Welcome New PSF Members!

2012-08-16T10:30:00.000-04:00

Just the other day the Python Software Foundation held an election, the second and final one of the year, and the results are in! 18 new members were introduced, and the membership approved three new sponsor members. Please join us in welcoming all of them!

Candidates for PSF membership are nominated by an existing member for their work in the Python community. The membership is comprised of people from around the world and from many areas of the community.

These new members are selected from many different areas of the Python community. While some members are known for their contributions of code, many are known for their work to grow their local and regional communities. Some members are known for their work in educational workshops and conferences. It takes a diverse membership to ensure the success of a foundation steering a diverse community, so we're happy to have members of all types from all areas, both geographically and within the Python world.

Please join us in welcoming all of the new members to the Foundation!

Nick Barcet
Dana Bauer
James Blair
Thierry Carrez
Anand Chittipothu
Antonio Cuni
Anne Gentle
Noufal Ibrahim
Vish Ishaya
Christopher MacGown
Dave Malcolm
Joshua McKenty
Mark McLoughlin
Mariano Reingart
Bruno Rocha
Monty Taylor
Dean Troyer
Vicky Twomey-Lee

The following sponsor members were approved:

For the full PSF membership roster, please see http://www.python.org/psf/members/

Redesign Proposals Due July 21

2012-07-17T13:02:00.002-04:00

Just a quick reminder: Proposals for the python.org redesign are due by 11:59 PM EST on July 21, 2012. That's four days away!

For more details, please read our Request for Proposals.

As always, questions and comments can be emailed to the psf-redesign mailing list at psf-redesign@python.org.

PSF Sponsors First PyCon Philippines

2012-06-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

The Python Software Foundation donated USD $600 to the first Python Conference in the Philippines. The conference will be held in Manila from June 30th to July 1st, 2012. The organizers behind this conference are the Philippines Python User Group (PHPUG), pyDanny, Audrey Roy and various other members of the Python community. You can meet and greet them in a very nice tropical clime. Who wouldn't want to study Python on a beautiful island? They're still accepting registrations, so act fast!

PSF Sponsors Upcoming International Python Conferences

2012-06-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

The Python Software Foundation is happy to announce the sponsorship of five upcoming Python related conferences all over the world. The PSF donated EUR 3500 to EuroPython which is being held in Florence, Italy this year from July 2-8. Next on the calendar is PyCon Australia 2012, which the PSF granted AUD $1500 . The Pythoneers down under will be in Hobart, Tasmania on August 18th through the 19th. The PSF gave NZD 1000 to Kiwi PyCon which is being held September 1-2 in Dunedin, New Zealand. PyCon Argentina received USD $3000 in funding this year. They will be holding their conference in Buenos Aires starting November 12th and running through the 17th. Finally PythonBrazil also received USD $3000 in funding and will be holding their conference November 21-24 in Rio de Janerio.

If you're in the area or in the mood for travel and you want to learn some Python or just meet some of the international Python people, this year is a good one. You can travel to scenic Italy for EuroPython, head down to Australia for their exotic animals and then take a boat over to New Zealand for Kiwi PyCon. When it starts getting cold outside, you can head down to South America and spend a couple weeks learning Python in Argentina and Brazil. Can you think of a better way to get out of the cold?

Welcome New PSF Members!

2012-05-31T10:00:00.000-04:00

After the spring elections, the Foundation is happy to welcome a new group of members.

All members of the PSF are nominated by an existing member for their work in the Python community. We have quite a diverse set of community members joining us this year, with representation across many countries and individuals contributing to many areas of the Python world.

Please join us in welcoming all of the new members to the Foundation!

Tim Ansell
Martin Aspeli
Henrique Bastos
Benoit Chesneau
Jan Ulrich Hasecke
Larry Hastings
Stephen Hawkes
Ewa Jodlowska
Andreas Jung
Noah Kantrowitz
Peter Kropf
Jannis Leidel
Chris McDonough
Paul McMillan
Carl Meyer
Luciano Ramalho
Kenneth Reitz
Armin Ronacher
Michelle Rowley
Tres Seaver
Hanno Schlichting
Armin Stroß-Radschinski
Christian Theune
Giles Thomas
Nicholas H. Tollervey
Wilfredo Sanchez Vega
Chris Withers

For the full PSF membership roster, please see http://www.python.org/psf/members/