5.1   Communication Status

D. Hellmann, Communication Officer, has recruited volunteers to help write for the blog found at http://pyfound.blogspot.com/. For instance, Paul Nuin will be writing about the PyPi Mirroring Project and Engelbert Gruber is constructing interview questions to use to inquire about the new PyCon website.

5.2   Core Development Tasks

B. Cannon, Core Development Tasks Project, will begin working on this 2-month project in January 2011.

5.3   HAM WebPages/Links

P. Campbell, Honorary Associate Membership (HAM) WebPages Start-up Project, is currently working with our treasurer, Kurt Kaiser in order to setup the new Honorary Associate Membership fee payment system that will interface with the Python website.

Board Discussion:

S. Holden: "We really need to treat this as important, since it will generate additional revenues to spend on sprints and the like."

K. Kaiser: "We are setting up a new processor, FirstData. So between them and "classic" PayPal (money by email) we should be able to handle the payments.

5.4   Marketing Material

MAL provides a brief introduction into his marketing project:

"The project is lead by Marc-André Lemburg who is in contact with the people behind the Plone brochure created by the German Zope User Group (DZUG): Jan Ulrich Hasecke and Armin Stroß-Radschinski.

We started working on the concept a few weeks after World Plone Day (http://rheinland.worldploneday.de/) and had several meetings and phone conference calls to take the idea forward."

5.5   PyCon US Website

D. Napoleone, PyCon US Website Project, says that the new website for 2011 has been launched and that calls for proposals, tutorials, and posters are currently being accepted:"The website us.pycon.org/2011 is live with complete information, including sponsorship, and blog integration on planet python. Calls for proposals, tutorials and posters have been sent out and the website is now accepting all three. The review system is in place. We have already received proposals in all three categories."

In addition, D. Napoleone also reported that the registration launch has been slightly delayed due to issues with PSF accounting and CTE.

Board Discussion:

S. Holden: "I see we chose to use CTE's registration system. I am surprised that registration has been such a time sink over so many years."

K. Kaiser: "Yes, we change every year but hopefully, this is it for awhile..."

J. Noller: "Because registration and accounting is a h"ard problem, we've been unable to get a volunteer pool to address fully, completely, and with a code base that's actually maintainable."

D. Napoleone: "Registration is very hard to get right, especially when everything including the kitchen sink is wanted. We are rather liberal when its comes to things like refunds, and unlike some other conferences, we have add-ons like tutorials which are announced AFTER registration opens."

10. Noller: "Therefore, outsourcing it makes the most sense."

S. Holden: "A small concern that it ties us to a third party that's shown evidence of instability in the last year."

K. Kaiser: "Yes, outsourcing registration is a good idea because it provides continuity across volunteers."

D. Napoleone: "When you look at the history of trying to do registration with a volunteer based system, we have had to rewrite it every year. One massive problem with this is integration with the hotel registration which is something impossible for a volunteer effort to manage. As well as, we change hotel vendors as we move locations."

5.6   pyOpenSSL Status

J.P. Calderone, pyOpenSSL Project, has been working to improve the coverage provided by pyOpenSSL's test suite and one such improvement would include having addressed all known issues with the port.

5.7   Sprint Committee

J. Noller, Sprint Committee Chair, provides a brief summary of the Sprint Committee's current activities and progress:

"We still don't have the number of sprints we want lined up - on the other hand, we do have a donor who has sent money to the PSF for further sprints funding: http://pythonsprints.com/2010/10/11/trading-technologies-sponsors-python-sprints/"

Board Discussion:

S. Holden: "Thanks for your work on sprints. I see this as a good practical way to support grass-roots development work.