5.1   Communication Status

D. Hellmann, Communication Officer, reported on continued activities from last month. He said:

1. Send announcement email about the blog to various mailing lists (c.l.py, c.l.py.announce, etc.).

No progress.

Doug also reported on new activities for the month. His list of activities revealed the following:

1. PyArgentina Grant

   Written by Mike Driscoll

   Posted 15 Aug: http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/08/psf-grants-pyargentina-us1500.html

2. PyCon Ireland Grant

   Written by Mike Driscoll

   Posted 2 Sept: http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2011/09/psf-grants-pycon-ireland-us1500.html

3. The twitter team has been busy this month monitoring and re-tweeting information about PyCon, especially announcements of sponsors and deadlines.

As far as the ongoing projects for the month are concerned, he reported:

1. Recruiting other people to help write for the blog.

   A few volunteers have expressed interest, but things are getting off to a slow start. I hope to have some more interesting topics to give them after the August Board meeting.

2. Mike Driscoll is working on a retrospective post summarizing all of the funding we have provided for conferences over the last year. We will wait to publish until closer to the end of 2011.

For tabled activities, D. Hellmann said:

1. PyCon video equipment loan/rental program post

   There was some discussion of offering the PyCon video equipment to PUGs for their meetings, but the mechanism to do it isn't in place, yet.

5.2   Honorary Associate Membership WebPages/Links

Board Discussion Only:

K. Kaiser: "I could use some help on the text - specifically, a thank-you letter from the chairman -- outside of that, we are indeed close."

S. Holden: "I'll be happy to provide that. Is there any web work required? Can we get help?

K. Kaiser: "No, no web work. There's a good possibility it will go on line this week.

5.3   Marketing Material

M.A.Lemburg, Marketing Material Project Manager, reported on the progress of this project when he said:

"We are making slow progress in getting success stories, image data, quotes, publication approvals, etc. lined up. Following up to over 60 leads is turning out to be a major piece of work.

We could use some help from people who are good at email communication and can keep in touch with leads until they deliver.

On text and layout side, we are making progress and will have a meeting next week to start putting everything together."

M.A.Lemburg also reported on issues with the project, he said:

"As always, additional help in finding such interesting projects would be greatly appreciated. Please consider signing up as contact scout:

http://brochure.getpython.info/signup/contact-scout-signup

and, if you're interested in the project, please consider signing up to our newsletter:

http://brochure.getpython.info/

Thanks !"

As far as future plans are concerned, he reported:

"If the project goes well, we'll follow up with a Python flyer, translated versions of the brochure and also consider creating marketing material more targeted at specific user groups or application fields.

In the long run, we'd also like to take the idea of producing marketing material beyond printed material and develop booth setups, giveaways, CDs, etc. to support conference organizers and local user groups wishing to promote Python at their events."

5.4   Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront

The project leader, M.A. Lemburg, Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront, reported on progress for the month:

"The project is currently on hold, since the team members don't have time to put into this."

In terms of having any issues surrounding his project, M. A. Lemburg reported no issues except one: he said, he just does not have enough time to devote to his Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront project.

13. 1. Lemburg also reported on future plans for the project:

"Check to see whether a trigger based approach to S3 syncing wouldn't be easier to implement right from the start."

5.5   PyCon Chair

J. Noller, PyCon Chair, provided us with information on when and where the next two PyCon US conferences will be held, in addition to the web location of the official PyCon 2012. Please see below:

PyCon 2012: March 7th — 15th, Santa Clara, CA PyCon 2013: March 11th — 21st, Santa Clara, CA Official Site: http://us.pycon.org/2012

As far as the continued activities from last month, he reported:

1. Sponsors continue to line up for PyCon 2012: We have now achieved a record 50 sponsors signed up, almost all of which have been invoiced, some of which have already paid. This is amazing, and sets us in an excellent position financially. I continue to drive hard on sponsorship; and I have at least an addition 10 sponsors pending. I am driving hard on getting fresh leads for potential sponsors.

2. The budget was approved in its current form; and we continue to update the current position(s) as required. Our current outlook is extremely positive solely based on the sponsor revenue. A note on the current level will be sent to the private board list.

3. The call for proposals was issued, has been under way and we are seeing a steady trickle of high quality submissions from the community.

4. We are still waiting on AV/Recording vendor responses to our request for quotes. This is a concern - I'd like to lock these contracts down quickly, but can not make the bidding parties move more quickly.

5. We are still negotiating room commission rates with the Hyatt.

Jesse also reported on the new activities for the month. He said:

1. CTE has been contacted about negotiations and discussions around 2012.

2. We are doing a massive press/blog/email push in the upcoming month to push the call for proposals. Brian Curtin is coordinating this effort.

3. I am flying out to Santa Clara next week (Sept 21st-23rd) for the on site visit and discussions with the Hyatt and convention center staff.

4. Activate the Program Committee - I am pushing hard to get the volunteers and staff activated and engaged.

5. Management of the program guide has been passed off to Yannick, Ewa, Van and Doug N.

6. We have announced the first keynote speaker: Paul Graham of Y Combinator, as well as the first Plenary speaker - David Beazley. Both announcements have generated an amazing amount of buzz and positive energy for the conference. http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/09/announcing-first-pycon-2012-plenary.html http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/09/announcing-first-pycon-2012-keynote.html

7. Announced and deployed the new PyCon Jobs Fair page and sponsor benefit - http://us.pycon.org/2012/sponsors/jobs/ http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/09/announcing-pycon-2012-fair-page-sponsor.html

The last two PyCon US items reported on by Jesse were the "planned for next month" where he included a list of the current Heads/Staff for PyCon 2012.

1. Reach out to PyLadies, and other organizations to help put together a plan for talk mentorship; and a potential dedicated diversity grant fund for PyCon.

2. Coordinate with Eldarion to deploy the review system for the program committees.

3. Activate and push on volunteer leadership roles for the staff.

4. Push on blog posts from the community and volunteer staff to help build more buzz around PyCon and the call for proposals.

5. Continue sponsor drive.

Current Heads/Staff for PyCon 2012

Chair: Jesse Noller Co-Chair: Yannick Gingras Accountant/Sponsors: Van Lindberg

Event Coordinator: Ewa Jodlowska/CTE Public Relations Lead: Brian Curtin

Tech Lead: Doug Napoleone Tech Co-Lead: Noah Kantrowtiz

Volunteer Lead: TBD

Program Committee Chair: Jacob Kaplan-Moss Program Committee Co-Chair: Tim Lesher

Tutorials Chair: Stuart Williams Tutorials Co-Chair: TBD

Posters Chair: Vern Ceder Tutorials Co-Chair: Zac Miller

Financial Aide Chair: Peter Kropf Financial Aide Co-Chair: TBD

However, under "tabled activities," he provided the following:

None

5.6   Trademarks Committee (TMC)

D. Mertz, Trademarks Committee Chair, reported on issues & blockages for the month. He said:

• Have asked PSF counsel several times about whether assignment of derived logos to the PSF might allow us to grant broader permission (for what would then, hypothetically) be PSF trademarks. Committee members have opined both directions on whether this would assuage dilution concern, but we really need legal advice. Unfortunately, Van hasn't found time to develop an answer to this.

As far as reporting on new activities, however, he provided the following list of items:

• Late July: Discussion of a logo at http://py.codeconf.com/ that committee ultimately decided was "inspired by but not derived" from a trademarks perspective. However, looking at the current site, it appears that they have yet another logo variant; and the latest seems to raise a new concern. So I'll send that back to the committee for discussion.
• Early August: Marc-Andre responded on my behalf to Lumentica, LLC to indicate that their use was purely nominative.
• Early August: Let Long Duong <long@studioart.org> know that we did not have a trademark interest in the name "PyCamp" and that it follows the "PyWhatever" pattern of many projects.
• Early August: Let Adrianna Tan <adrianna@pentopixel.net> who runs a Singapore Python User Group know that a derived logo that slightly modified both shape and substantially modified colors would be acceptable if shape was preserved, but colors could be modified to fit with broader design.
• Early August: Clarified nominative use for Jonathan Baudoin <jonathan.baudoin@simple-it.fr> who wanted to use Python logo on book covers.
• Early August: Let Yung-Yu Chen <yyc@solvcon.net> know that a derived logo requested for a Taiwanese user group was a dilutive variation, and suggested variations that would avoid dilution (thanks again to MAL on this one). However, I did let Yung-Yu know that the PSF trademark does not strictly extend to Taiwan, so they are technically permitted to make what derivations they want for use within that jurisdiction; he showed understanding and their group decided to create an alternate non-derived logo nonetheless.
• Late August: Clarified for Larry Hastings <larry@hastings.org> that his "Radio Free Python" was nominative use of the word mark.
• Late August: Jess Noller made a hush-hush request for use of logo for commercial PyCon-tie-in items. While there wasn't a lot of data provided the "we trust Jesse" principle prevails.
• Early September: Clarified nominative use in conference badges for Sandeep Dedage <Sandeep.Dedage@newport.com>.
• Early September: Clarified for Nick Chadwick <chadnickbok@gmail.com> that his "LetsPython" name and unaltered logo were nominative use.
• Mid September: Several "Python in Debian" project members submitted derived logos that modified the Python logo to combine it with the Debian logo in a dilutive way. We let them know that this derivation would not be permitted and they agreed to an alternate logo design that was not derived from our trademark.
• Mid September: A complex issue came up with the book Maya Python for Games and Film: A Complete Reference for Maya Python and the Maya Python API using an dilutive derived logo. Apparently this use came from an innocent confusion between author Adam Mechtley <adam.mechtley@gmail.com> (who contacted us) and his publisher Elsevier/Morgan-Kaufmann, in which they used an informal design suggestion of his without proper vetting. Editor "Lewin, Laura (ELS-BUR)" <L.Lewin@Elsevier.com> contacted me as well to work out a solution, which is changing the design for the second printing, but putting an apology notice on the website for the book to explain the inadvertent misuse.

David also reported on other new activities that are planned for next month. He said:

• Get back with Michael_Endres@scee.net to let him know that color and shape derived versions of the logo suggested for PlayStation®Home "internal use" are not really allowable.

He also reported on "ongoing projects." He said:

• James Costa <james@thephuse.com> made some improved proposals for HAM logos, that were discussed on the Board list as well as posted to Trademarks. The consensus seems to be that we should accept one or more of the 6 proposed designs; we need to pin down which ones to actually use.

5.7   Outreach and Education Committee

D. Mertz, Outreach and Education Committee Chair, reported that there were no issues & blockages for the month.

However, he reported on a list of new activities. He said:

• Wished to direct diversity funds for Pycon AU, but unfortunately timing of board authorization didn't work out to allow this to happen.
• Gained authority to authorize up to $5000 to diversity efforts by board motion passed in August IRC meeting (after missing quorum requirement for email voting earlier).

David also reported on the activities that are planned for next month. He said:

• Confer IRC meeting to discuss future allocation of available diversity/outreach funding authority.