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PSF Meeting Minutes for April 30, 2012

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The Python Software Foundation
Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors

April 30, 2012


A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat beginning at 16:00 UTC, 30 April 2012. Steve Holden presided at the meeting. Pat Campbell prepared the minutes.

All votes are reported in the form "Y-N-A" (in favor — opposed — abstentions; e.g. "5-1-2" means "5 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions").

1   Attendance

The following members of the new Board of Directors (11 of ll) were present at the meeting: Brian Curtin, Steve Holden, Andrew Kuchling, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Van Lindberg, Martin von Löwis, Jessica McKellar, David Mertz, Doug Napoleone [arrived at 12:12], Jesse Noller, and Tim Peters. Also in attendance were Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer) and Pat Campbell (Secretary/Administrator).

2   Minutes of Past Meetings

The 26 March 2012 Board meeting minutes were voted on and approved.

RESOLVED, that the minutes at http://mail.python.org/mailman/private /psf-board/2012-April/016746.html be accepted as a true and accurate record of the March meeting.

Approved, 8-0-1.

3   Votes Taken Between Meetings

There were no votes taken between meetings.

4   Treasurer Report

The monthly Treasurer's Report was provided to Board members by K. Kaiser prior to the Board meeting and produced from Quickbooks Online.

Here is an exerpt from the treasurer's report on a few of the activities the treasurer has been focused on:

For the month of April 2012, the treasurer provided a sumation of the financial activities by saying:

Our assets were up by 25K in March, reflecting the payments for PyCon registration and sponsorship. This was matched by a similar increase in liability.

March was, of course, extremely busy financially, but the P&L won't show much change until we recognize the results of PyCon 2012. At that point (triggered by settling accounts with the convention center and the hotels, including room commissions) the accrued expense and revenue will move to the P&L and our assets and liabilities will return to normal levels.

He reported on the revenue and expense below:

Revenue:

In the month of March, YTD income was down by 14K, primarily due to payroll and Python Brochure expense. Total equity declined to 462K.

Donations for the month were $5026.

Expense:

Outside Services:
Wendroff 1,150 Evenios: Python Brochure 5,396

The treasurer goes on to say:

At the end of March, AR was down to 245K due to PyCon 2012 Sponsor and PSF Sponsor collection activity. As of 16 April, AR was 168K.

I was involved in the purchase of a Dell server to host python.org, and in modifying the domain's nameserver pointers to access a new dns host. I'm also being asked to procure some additional server certificates.

Concerning the Honorary Associate Member Program (HAM), he said:

Associate Member program:

The website is available to accept Associate Member registrations.

I expect to get back to working on the comments received at PyCon. This process will continue over the next few months.

We still need to link psfmember.org to python.org, improve the attractiveness of the offering by adding content on python.org relating to the Associate Membership, and make the community aware of the opportunity.

Kurt concluded his report with a list of item the treasurer's office will be focused on, he said:

My focus is on PyCon wrapup, AR/AP reduction, the Associate program, and the increased activity and the strong interest in fiscal sponsorship shown at PyCon.

5   Progress Reports

The following board reports were submitted to the board mailing list one week prior to this month's meeting. Please see a summary of each board report listed below and a possible board discussion at the end of the report(s):

5.1   Communication Status

B. Curtin, (new) Communications 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.).

Brian is planning an email campaign with the Outreach & Education committee, and the PSF blog may be included in the resources discussed there.

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

I (Brian) had a busier month than normal with other projects, so I was unable to produce any new work outside of a post about the Indianapolis Python Workshop. Tetsuya Morimoto completed a translation of the PyCon Language Summit Report to Japanese, which was great to have such a large post translated for that community.

I was contacted by a staffer from PHP Solutions magazine about contributing some coverage of Python to be published, but no one on the team (or the ones outside the team who I've contacted) has shown interest.

He reported the following information on the planned activities for next month:

1. Via Steve Holden, we have some information to put together a story about Python's use in schools from David Coopersmith along with a student of his named Isaac. The same story involves some praise for the trademark committee, which may or may not go into the same post.

  1. Community service award posts for Audrey Roy and Carl Trachte.

3. Post information about this summer's PyGames contest for students (http://www.summerpygames.org/).

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

  1. Brian Curtin is working on a post about the video equipment purchased by the PSF and how it has been used to record conference talks and other events.
  2. Recruiting other people to help write for the blog.

For tabled activities, B. Curtin 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 Program

P. Campbell, Honorary Associate Membership (HAM) WebPages & New Membership Subscription Start-up Project (with K. Kaiser as the primary technical guru), reported on the current issues or blockages the project may be faced with by saying:

"We are closer to the end of the technical phase of the Honorary Associate Membership (HAM) Project. However, attention is now being geared more toward working on the HAM content cosmetics and beautification on the python.org website.

Many technical hurdles have been jumped in order to setup the HAM program and we are now beginning to see the finish line."

As far as the continued activities from last month are concerned, she reported:

Please see the message from Kurt Kaiser’s March 2012 treasurer’s report regarding the activities involving the technical phase of the HAM program implementation, website setup and membership signup:

“The website is available to accept Associate Member registrations.

I expect to get back to working on the comments received at PyCon. This process will continue over the next few months.

We still need to link psfmember.org to python.org, improve the attractiveness of the offering by adding content on python.org relating to the Associate Membership, and make the community aware of the opportunity.”

5.3   Marketing Material

M.A. Lemburg, Marketing Material Project Manager, provided a summary of his work. He said:

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 in April 2010 and had several meetings and conference calls to take the idea forward.

For more details, please see the brochure support site at:

http://brochure.getpython.info/learn-more

Marc-André also reported on the progress of his project when he said:

The PyCon US teaser version of the brochure has so far not resulted in much feedback from the PyCon US attendees. We've had a few signups to the newsletter, a couple of visits to the site, but that's about it.

Here's the link to the PDF of the teaser, in case you missed it: http://brochure.getpython.info/media/flyer/python-brochure-pycon-us-2012-teaser-booklet/view

It looks like finding sponsors will be just as much work as getting the content lined up. We'll probably have to contact potential sponsors directly and do one-on-one marketing. We plan to do a call for sponsors via the usual channels to help change the situation.

The online payment solution has been up since the start of PyCon US in March. We do have a few ad and reference sponsor signups, but no where near enough to start going to print. Most of the signups are from Germany. If the US folks don't hurry up, the reference list will be filled with German IT shops :-)

As a result of the slow progress with sponsors, we won't be able to produce the brochure in time for EuroPython 2012, which is sad, since it would have been nice to show off the new brochure on the new PSF booth we'll likely have there.

5.3.2   Educational Sponsorship

In case you missed it in the last report: we have also added a new sponsor option: the educational sponsorship.

This works much like the subscription sponsorship where a company can order extra brochure copies at very reasonable prices. The difference is that companies can order extra copies for educational institutions of their choice or of the PSF's choice. The bill will be paid by the company and the boxes will go straight to the institution.

5.3.3   Please Help find Sponsors

If you know possible sponsors or are interested in sponsoring the brochure yourself, please check the available sponsorship plans we have available:

http://brochure.getpython.info/sponsorship

If you have questions, please ping me directly or write to brochure at getpython.info.

M.A Lemberg reported on the current issues the project is faced with. He said:

If you know of interesting projects or companies using Python to great things, please contact us and consider signing up as contact scout to provide on-site help at conferences or other events:

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 the future plans for this project are concerned, he reported:

If the project goes well, we'll follow up with a second edition of the brochure, Python flyers using material extracted from the brochure, 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."

According to M. A. Lemburg, there is nothing new to report for this month. He said:

"I'm beginning to believe that doing a sprint of sorts would likely be the best way to move this forward, but I currently don't have more cycles to spare (the brochure project has turned out to be very work intense), so can't lead such an effort at the moment."

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.

    1. Lemburg also reported on the future plans for this 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 surrounding the current status of the PyCon US affairs. He reported on the interim period at the closing of PyCon US 2012 and the gearing up of PyCon US 2013:

"Not much to report this month: We are in the process of closing out the 2012 budget/books so the foundation can recognize the revenue from the conference. We are in the discussion phase of 2013 based on what we learned from 2012, and I am ramping up sponsorship discussions for 2013 behind the scenes.

Until the books are closed for 2012 I am not comfortable with moving forward on 2013.

I have a larger blog post planned to discuss the conference overall - with over 2300 attendees, the conference was a wild success by any measure and feedback has been positive modulo complaints about the food."

5.6   Sprint Committee (SC)

J. Noller &/or B. Curtin, Sprint Committee Chair, reported that there were no issues or blockages surrounding any sprint activities for the month.

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

None

On his report of the new activities for the month, He reported:

We received and accepted a reimbursement request for a sprint at Rochester Institute of Technology. The sprint occurred Friday April 13 -- we are awaiting their request for reimbursement as well as details of the event.

In terms of the new activities planned for next month. He wrote:

The email and blog campaign to raise awareness of the group. I need to coordinate this with another email campaign I'll be doing for O&E so I don't spam user groups.

As far as the ongoing projects for this committee, He said:

Wrapping up of the ledger project. This is mostly complete as the previous sprint data has been loaded in.

5.7   Infrastructure Committee (IC)

S. Reifschneider, Infrastructure Committee Chair, reported on continued activities from last month. He wrote:

  • Hosting Project: Discussions are still ongoing with regards to OSU/OSL and other hosting provider (whos name I can never remember). This project has been picked up again and is expected to make further progress.

  • Arc Riley is planning to transfer these domains:

    jython.com jython.net psfb.org psfmember.com psfmember.net psfmember.org python3.org

Sean also reported on the activities planned for next month. He said:

  • Continue on migration of services to their new homes.

5.8   Outreach and Education Committee (OEC)

D. Mertz, Outreach and Education Committee Chair, reported on the issues & blockages this committee was faced with for the month.

  • Some active discussion with PyLadies organizers about likely reorganization of the group/brand, with PSF possibly playing a large(r) role in the future direction. Most of this needs to remain confidential for a little while longer, but will probably result in some motions for PSF Board to consider.

However, he also reported that there was no new planned activities. He wrote:

  • Nothing new to report for the month.

5.9   Trademarks Committee (TMC)

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

  • Never really received a formal answer from PSF counsel about whether assignment of derived logos to the PSF might allow us to grant broader permission (for what would then, hypothetically) be PSF trademarks.
  • The "PyLadies" is considering granting the name to the PSF for stewardship. There are a number of inter-related issue with changes to the group that I have been discussing with them, so no motion about this is quite ready yet, but this is likely to be something the board will need to decide on.
  • Need to locate someone to create a better unified record of all the trademarks authorizations and refusals made by the committee. Perhaps this can be a responsibility of the PSF Secretary/Administrator in the near future? The information on actions is all there in mailing list archives, but not in any nicely digestible form (such as on a Wiki or a Google Docs spreadsheet).
  • Seemed to have missed Marc-Andre's motion to adopt the PSF logo from last month's meeting. Added to agenda.

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

  • Apparently John Morrissey <jwm at horde.net> displayed his authorized stained-glass versions of the Python logo at PyCon. I did not personally have an opportunity to see them though.
  • A bunch of discussion with Fernando Perez and other IPython folks at PyCon about possible filing of an "IPYTHON" trademark by the PSF. Since the mark would be derived from the PYTHON word mark, and yet the PSF itself has never used the derived mark, assuming the trademark by the PSF will presumably require fiscal sponsorship or some other arrangement between IPython and the PSF. Mostly TBD.
  • Beginning of March: Permission for Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> to use the name "Open Python" and the Python logo embedded in a US map for several Open Bastion conferences.
  • Beginning of March: Discussion with Donald Stufft <donald at crate.io> about derived version of Python logo for site https://crate.io. An initial version of a derived logo was too much of a modification of the design, but some discussion led to a version that preserved the full shape of the Python logo (with some permitted perspective added, as if logo was stamped on side of a crate).
  • The kind Jonathan Hosmer <jon at pythonforios.com> with whom we worked out the name "Python for iOS" for his Python distribution (modified from the confusing iPython, which is similar to the older IPython shell) decided to offer to PSF members complimentary licenses to his distribution which I distributed to some PSF members (including Guido). FWIW, Jonathan offered more free copies than were claimed, but the recipients all seemed to like the distro.
  • Late March: Authorized use of logo on stickers made by Teemu Otala <info at nixstickers.com>.
  • Late March: phillip torrone <pt at adafruit.com> of http://www.adafruit.com provided some complimentary iron-on Python logo patches (that we authorized previously) to the PSF Secretary; and some more to the TC Chair.
  • Early April: Clarified for Amit Saha <amitsaha.in at gmail.com> that use of screenshots of the Python shell in a Prentice-Hall book were not restrict by our trademarks or copyright policies.
  • Early April: Was notified by Lucius <lucius.bentley.kina at gmail.com> that a second free-of-cost Python distribution for iOS is being sole on the iTunes store. The name is nominative, and no special action is needed by the PSF. FWIW, the distribution seems to be of lower quality than Hosmer's "Python for iOS" but that is for buyers/users to decide. Out of curtesy, I discussed this distribution with Mr. Hosmer, just so he would be aware of it.
  • Jonathan Hosmer requested, and I authorized, use of the somewhat more specific distribution names "Python 2.7.2 for iOS" and "Python 3.2.3 for iOS". My permission covered creation of any similar names that follow the numbering of underlying Python versions (he may create other versions than these--presumably at least later Python versions when they are created).
  • Late April: The PSF Secretary was able to send some complimentary "Python 3" stickers to Timothy Farrell <explorigin at gmail.com> who requested them.
  • Late April: Authorized request from Ricardo Bánffy <rbanffy at gmail.com> to use the Python logo with the words "GruPy-SP" for the São Paulo Python user group. The modified logo preserves the icon, and uses a similar font to that used in our word mark version of the "Python" logo.

As far as his "ongoing projects", he said:

  • See "Issues"

5.10   Google Summer of Code (GSoC)

A. Riley, Google Summer of Code (GSoC), reported on the issues and/or blockages this program is currently faced with. He said:

1. Several applications for projects under our umbrella came in after the deadline, I was still processing new project applications during student applications which caused delays.

2. Lower number of applications (80) compared to previous years resulting in 25 slots allocated (we ended up with 30 last year). The projects which got involved by the deadline got the highest number of applications.

Arc also reported on the continued activities from last month when he wrote:

1. Still signing up new mentors, many are in queue from the last week. We should have a mostly finalized group of mentors by the end of tomorrow (4/17).
  1. Riley reported on new activities for the month. He said:

    1. Student selections; receiving choices from mentors today (4/16) and I will have until 4/18 to compile a semi-final list for Google. That list may be modified due to extra slots being made available or losing students due to inability to provide credentials or de-duplication.

As far as the planned activities for next month, he reported: the ongoing projects,

1. After student selections and the official announcement by Google, we'll enter the "community bonding" period. I'll be working with mentors to ensure students stay involved during this time and are ready to begin at program start.

Additionally, Arc reported on "ongoing projects" with the GSoC project and on "tabled activities", respectively:

5.11   Ongoing Projects

Summer of Code 2012 will be ongoing until August.

5.12   Tabled Activities

  1. Discussion with rejected mentors regarding why they were not accepted this year.

6   Executive Session Held by Board of Directors

Board members held a brief Executive Session to discuss the efforts expended by and compensation for the Administrator and the Treasurer.

7   2012 EuroPython Conference Funding

RESOLVED, that the PSF provide EUR 3,500 to the 2012 EuroPython Conference to be held in Florence, Italy.

Approved, 10-0-1.

8   2012 PyArgentina Conference Funding

RESOLVED, that the PSF provide funding of USD 3,000 to sponsor the PyArgentina Conference to be held in Buenos Aires.

Approved, 11-0-0.

9   Rasberry Pi Model B Kits

RESOLVED, that the PSF purchases 50 Rasberry Pi model B kits (USD 35 each) to donate to interested Python projects, community members and to use as raffle for conferences, in order to help increase the number of available Python applications for the platform. Steve Holden will provide a publicity and distribution plan by the next board meeting.

Approved, 9-2-0.

Board Discussion:

M. vLowis: "I think this is a too specific, too toy, too irrelevant a project to support."

M. A. Lemburg: "It's mostly marketing for the PSF and it's a pretty cheap marketing gadget."

D. Napoleone: "I viewed this as a [Public Relations] PR campaign, and any actual work we get out of it as a bonus."

  1. Holden: "User groups can use them as prizes too."

D. Mertz: "Even though a bit of a toy, I think the publicity from giving them out potentially helps donations and interest in the foundation."

  1. Linberg: "Is this a time-limited offer?"
  1. Holden: "Yes."

10   PyPy STM Project Funding

RESOLVED, that the PSF provides seed funding for the PyPy STM project (http://pypy.org/tmdonate.html) with an initial amount of USD 5,000. Additional funding will be made available depending on project progress in 6 month intervals, subject to approval by the Board of Directors.

Approved, 9-1-1.

11   PyPy Py3k Project Funding

RESOLVED, that the PSF provides seed funding for the PyPy Py3k project (http://pypy.org/py3donate.html) with an initial amount of USD 7,500. Additional funding will be made available depening on project progress in 6 month intervals, subject to approval by the Board of Directors.

Denied, 1-9-1.

12   2012 Frank Willison Award Nomination

Board members discussed and recommended the 2012 recipient of the Frank Willison Award to O'Reilly Media.

[Details temporarily omitted from the public minutes, to be restored after the announcement.]

13   Conference Kits for Python Conference Booths

RESOLVED, that PSF funds an effort to create PSF conference kits for running booths at conferences, lead by Marc-Andre Lemburg with up to EUR 1,200 (about USD 1,600) per kit. Initially, three kits will be produced, one for Europe (to be used at EuroPython 2012), one for South America (to be used at PyCon AR 2012 and Python Brazil 2012) and one for the US.

Approved, 10-0-1.

Board Discussion:

  1. Lindberg: "I would like to know what will be in the kits."

M.A. Lemburg: "The kits will have a foldable display with 9 fields and two slip covers for bistro tables. The display will have the Python logo and the PSF logo on it -- same for the slip covers.

14   Appointment of Board Officers for 2012/2013

RESOLVED, that the following people be appointed as officers until the next Board election (or their resignation).

  • President: Guido van Rossum
  • Chairman: Steve Holden
  • Vice Chair/Chair-Elect: Van Lindberg
  • Secretary: Pat Campbell
  • Treasurer: Kurt Kaiser
  • Communications: Brian Curtin
  • PyCon US Chair: Jesse Noller
  • Events Coordinator: Eva Jodlowska

Approved, 10-0-0.

15   Reappointment of Project Management Committee Chairs for 2012/2013

RESOLVED, that the respective current chairmen of the following active project management committees be reappointed as chairman of the committee for the 2012/2013 term and that each chairman shall appoint the members of the their committee for the term:

  • Outreach & Education Committee (OREC)
  • Sprint Committee (SC)
  • Trademarks Committee (TMC)

Approved, 10-0-1.

17   Adjournment

  1. Holden adjourned the meeting at 17:29 UTC.