Perhaps this is an atypical election, or perhaps things are changing. Since the opening of voting earlier today, a number of people on Mastodon and elsewhere have voiced opinions. Others are welcome to do the same.
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Youâll be glad to know that we went back in time and took your advice many years ago. Not just some years even, every year! PyCon India is taking place in just a few weeks and PyCon Africa just a couple of weeks after that. Amazing, isnât it.
As for the much more interesting question youâve managed to not actually ask as far as Iâve seen: âWhy is PyCon US (or PyCon NA because of the years itâs been in Canada) the only conference directly organized by the PSF when there are now so many?â. I canât shed as much light on this as Thomas did in his excellent post above but I was (mostly) there for it so Iâll try. PyCon US started out as a fully volunteer-organized event, but the community was pretty small and it just so happened that the same people as doing PyCon US were also doing most of the logistics and planning for the PSF, not out of favoritism but because the few people interested in that kind of (fairly tedious and difficult) work were naturally interested in both topics. There was a similar event in Europe which started before PyCon US (just âPyConâ at the time), EuroPythonâs first event was in 2002 and PyCon in DC started in 2003. EuroPython quickly set up its own management organization, the EuroPython Society, as I understand it largely because it was logistically difficult to channel EU-based donations to a US bank account and then back to EU vendors. These days the PSF has a lot more capabilities for such things but this was 20 years ago and it made more sense to keep them separate. And so for largely historical reasons, it has remained this way. As other regional PyCons have started, some operate under the auspices of the PSF, some use an existing regional FOSS non-profit, and some found their own organization as EuroPython did (with the legal and logistical help of the PSF team to make sure they do things in a way best for their local community).
As for the increasing professionalization of PyCon US, this was also kind of accidental, or at least unexpected by the PyCon US team. For those not involved in the process, PyCon US looks for new locations in two year blocks. A big part of selecting a conference site is a proposal written by the local community there. In ~2006 we were looking at available options for 2008, and part of the bid submitted by ChiPy, the Chicago Python user group, was that they had priced in help from a professional event planner team (CTE) to offset their worries about having less on-the-ground talent in that area from ChiPy itself. Their bid ended up being selected for a variety of reasons, and at the time we all pretty much said âwell this CTE team seems nice, we donât really think weâll need it but they can help a bit". This was very much not PyCon US seeking out professionalization, it was suggested by the community team and accepted as an experiment. PyCon US 2008 was twice as big as 2007 and while we had some sharp growing pains that year (like 2025, 2008 was an incredibly hard year on non-profits as the world economy fell over and caught fire), the CTE team proved themselves to be extremely capable and helpful in navigating difficult problems. Despite the issues from 2008, the overall response from the Python community was they appreciated the larger and more polished event, giving room for more talks, more open spaces, and generally making the event more valuable for everyone. So we continued that trend, trying to fit in more of the things everyone wanted, and with that came more and more organizational duties. In time, the job being done by CTE was brought in-house to the PSF to help keep costs down and ensure we had full control over staffing. Our event planning crew eventually also started pitching in on general support and fundraising, which helped not just make PyCon US bigger, but gave the PSF resources to start supporting more community work elsewhere. And fast-forwarding a bit, we get where we are today, with PyCon US being the only event organized by the PSF team, not because of a sinister conspiracy, but just slow growth from volunteer roots to what we have now.
Hopefully that sheds some light on the organization structures of PyCon US over the last few decades.
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Just a quite Note: The link to Pycon Africa isnât working. I suppose you copied the wrong one?
I recall seeing people make endorsements and discussions regarding the bylaws changes last year. This is the first time I have seen people come put against a candidate (and, yes, I was one of those people.) I think a large part of why there isnât campaigning is because, in general, all the candidates are highly qualified. The endorsements are normal. The list of people nominating the candidates is also a part of that.
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The original post requested to focus on facts in this thread.
Governance
The governance of the Python Software Foundation is bound by the following:
- US 501(c)(3) laws
- the organizationâs Articles of Incorporation, including its purpose
- the organizationâs Mission
- the organizationâs Bylaws
Discussion points
- Are the stewards of the organization acting according to this governance?
- Is the fiscal projection of default grounded, or is it conjecture based on an individualâs opinion or misunderstanding of 501(c)(3) laws?
- Are there actionable steps needed beyond governance best practices? The board and Executive Director have been notified. It is their responsibility to represent the membership with fiduciary care.
My viewpoint
As a former board member and steering council member, I have not seen anything that isnât responsible governance from the PSF staff and board. The organization is being transparent and financially accountable as required by law.
Articles of Incorporation
Article III Purpose
The Corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, including:
(a) aggregating intellectual property consisting of the computer language known as âPython,â components of which are currently held by multiple parties;
(b) educating and training members of the general public in the application of Python;
(c) offering Python to members of the general public through the use of open source code licensing; and
(d) developing Python more extensively through scientific research conducted by the Corporation.
The Corporation shall have all powers now or hereafter granted by law, and in addition thereto shall have all powers lawfully necessary or required to carry out its purposes. All of the assets or earnings shall be used exclusively for the purposes hereinabove set out, including payment of expenses incidental thereto. No part of the net earnings shall inure to the benefit of any individual, and no part of its activities shall be for the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.
Mission
The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is a non-profit membership organization devoted to advancing open source technology related to the Python programming language. It qualifies under the US Internal Revenue Code as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) scientific and educational public charity, and conducts its business according to the rules for such organizations.
Bylaws
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Itâs not the âfact checksâ that get hidden, itâs your posts. They get hidden because of their tone, because people keep flagging them as against the code of conduct. Disrespectful and abusive. When they get flagged, they are automatically hidden until a moderator can make an evaluation of them. Itâs probably a good idea to read the community guidelines.
Youâre seriously asking why PyCon US is in the US? I think that would be obvious.
Or are you asking why there arenât any other PyCons? Because there are. There are so many PyCons, thereâs a whole website full of them! pycon.org (not us.pycon.org, which is specifically for PyCon US) currently lists, if I counted them correctly, 37 PyCons across the world, in addition to lots of conferences that arenât PyCon but are Python conferences.
Or are you asking why the PSF staff isnât organizing those PyCons and/or making them as big as PyCon US? Well, that would be because it would be horrendously expensive to try, and it would likely fail. Running a conference is hard work. Running a conference thatâs even a fifth of PyCon US in size requires a lot of local involvement and a lot of up-front funds. It also requires a legal presence in the location. Itâs not a simple thing. The PyCon US team has accumulated decades of experience on running PyCon US, and done so the hard way.
A lot of that experience could be used to organize other conferences in the US. It would take a lot of time and money to do so. It would be a significant investment and extremely risky. PyCon US is already risky because it moves around every two years. It would be a lot more efficient, financially and organizationally, if PyCon US was always in the same place, like many big cons are. But it would also mean reaching far fewer people: a significant portion of PyCon US attendees is a first-time attendee every year, and a significant portion is local or relatively local to the venue. The burden of moving PyCon US is one that is deliberately taken on, but it is a very careful trade-off.
Running conferences in different jurisdictions altogether would mean starting from scratch. Building an attendee base is hard. People wonât come just because the PSF organises it. And, donât forget, there are already lots of PyCons all over the world. How, exactly, would it be to anyoneâs benefit for the PSF to blunder in, colonial-like, and try to run a bigger and better conference?
Oh, are we just saying âwrongâ and pretending that matters? Okay: your fact check: wrong. Deb started in April. I know, because I signed the contract personally 
But also look what you can easily find on the PSF blog. We didnât post that four months after she started.
I also know we didnât sign her for the $100k listed on the 2022 tax return. That would be a ridiculously low salary for an Executive Director of a non-profit the size of the PSF. I canât find the details in my mail archive because it was a very busy couple of months, but the number is much more reasonable if you consider she only started in April.
And no, itâs not about hours of the week. She worked (and works, to my knowledge) 40 hours a week. Her start date was just not the start of the year, so the total compensation for the year is lower.
Iâm sure we would all love to see more numbers, yeah. PSF Accounting knows I love going over the numbers Urgently, not at all. There is no urgency here, certainly not a âpeople should work over Labor Day weekendâ-urgent. Thereâs also no need to assume ill intent or bad faith delays, and your insistence on hinting at them is unwelcome, insulting, and frankly despicable.
There is a process for these things, for many reasons, including making sure no preventable mistakes are made. The PSF Controller, Treasurer, Financial WG and Board are all involved in those processes. Ask them a reasonable question â without immediately crying foul play â and give them a reasonable amount of time. A reasonable amount of time is weeks, not hours.
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Hence my âin Python spacesâ qualifier. This election is different here for an obvious reason: one of the candidates has started ⊠at least 3 topics now, all highly contentious largely due to purported apocalyptic urgency and combative tone.
We havenât seen that here before in a Board election, at least not that I can recall.
By my lights, yes. I would like to see more discussion about Board candidates. But I donât know whether some rule forbids it. None I could find, but that doesnât mean there isnât one. There has to be some reason(s) for why Board candidatesâ position statements arenât posted on Discourse, and for why discussions of Board candidates in prior elections are conspicuous by absence here. Perhaps just because history tends to repeat itself.
You could always find some of that on âsocial mediaâ sites - that part isnât new.
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Here: https://za.pycon.org/
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Could a mod or admin clarify why @opokugideon562âs post was hidden? I was here at the time, and it happened so very fast (while I was moving the mouse to click the heart button) that I assumed something like that Discourse automatically hid a post with an external link made by a first-time poster. Just to head off needless paranoia in an already overheated topic. Thanks in advance.
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Running conferences in different jurisdictions altogether would mean starting from scratch. Building an attendee base is hard. People wonât come just because the PSF organises it. And, donât forget, there are already lots of PyCons all over the world. How, exactly, would it be to anyoneâs benefit for the PSF to blunder in, colonial-like, and try to run a bigger and better conference?
@thomas, what I am suggesting is exactly the opposite.
Enable the local organizations to be truly independent. They already operate in the respective jurisdictions and have an attendee base.
give them the legal assets and the monetary assets! Donât run everything through PSF USA - if something is âcolonial-likeâ, then this is.
Youâre seriously asking why PyCon US is in the US? I think that would be obvious.
what a strawman argument. I am asking why 50% of the yearly budget of the PSF regularly goes to a single conference in the US.
Where the PSF purports to be the steward of Python world-wide.
Or are you asking why the PSF staff isnât organizing those PyCons and/or making them as big as PyCon US? Well, that would be because it would be horrendously expensive to try, and it would likely fail.
So, instead everything gets spent on python US, and the remaining conferences are in a begger / supplicant position, where they have to rely on the goodwill of PSF to maybe get some scraps - and they have to fear that if they do not fall in line it even gets worse.
Example: pycon Africa 2023 open letter after funding denial
With colonialist undertones
âA PSF Board member once openly expressed the opinion that Anglo cultures always seem to be the ones that take the moral lead around the world, leaving others to follow their example. From any non-western perspective, this is an astounding idea to receive.â
Not my words.
$100k listed on the 2022 tax return. That would be a ridiculously low salary for an Executive Director of a non-profit
Tell that not to me, but to the average conference that gets the rug pulled from out of them because 1.000, 5.000, etc USD are denied to them in the grant freeze and/or that had already planned budgets after informal comimtments.
And are the 2.5 milliion dollar for pycon US also ridiculously low?
There has to be some reason(s) for why Board candidatesâ position statements arenât posted on Discourse,
I think the reasons are purely political:
- a climate of fear
- suppression of dissenting voices, regularly by a mob of supporters that jump on any dissent
- censoring by moderators and getting shouted at by powerful people
2. the less discussion there is, the easier it is for the current powers to entrench their position, to get their candidates through.
Hence discussion is discouraged through soft (not prompt it) and hard (censoring) measures. For instance, a number of cases where people got banned or censored on much less relevant topics can be seen as a show of force what happens to dissenters.
But they shall not break us.
Thatâs fantastic.
I think I might be responsible for the confusion between PyCon US and a non-existent âPyConâ. I was aware of country (and continent) specific PyCons. But by âPyConâ I meant âthe main flagship Python conference in the worldâ.
Some background on this:
- EuroPython was founded by folks from the European Python community
in 2001, since we wanted to create a yearly Python event in Europe,
closer to where we live (at the time, the only Python conference was
the commercial
InternationalPythonConference.
The first edition was held in 2002 in Charleroi, Belgium. The
conference has since been held in several places around Europe (see
EuroPython
Conference). The
PSF was not involved in this - it was still mostly a legal vehicle
to hold the Python IP. - EuroPython was run by (mostly) local volunteer groups for the first
15 years (2002 - 2016). - The EuroPython Society (EPS) was founded in 2004, to manage the
selection process of where the conference would go next and also to
hold the IP rights. - In 2016, the EPSâ mission was expanded to âfurther the use of the
programming language Python in Europeâ. - Starting in 2017, the EPS took over the main organization, since the
financial risk became unmanageable for smaller local communities. We
ran the conference largely using a remote setup and help from the
local communities.
The EPS does have good relations with the PSF, but the two organizations
are not affiliated (in the legal sense).
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I shared some information and numbers in the other thread.
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I would like to see constructive discussion around this point. I hope that it doesnât get lost in these threads. I appreciate thinking towards making global representation of the Python community less US-dominated.
To that end, I think this thread (or perhaps a new thread) would be well-served by pointers to information on the following topics:
- what relationships does the PSF have with different local organisations around the world?
- are there relevant local organisations with little to no current relationship with the PSF?
- how has this changed over time?
- have people at the PSF been thinking about these questions? Are there any plans which may change answers to these questions in the future?
Perhaps the most important thing missing from the thread is direct input from more local organisations. I would love to hear from local organisers on topics like:
- what are the biggest challenges you face in setting up and maintaining local Python communities?
- what problems could support (financial or otherwise) from the PSF solve?
If we can build up a solid information base from these topics, I think there is genuine room for well-informed discussion on how the PSF could change to help address global inequalities.
I think that accusations of bad faith and forecasts of impending doom serve to distract from such constructive discussion. At the very least, they serve to discourage engagement from those in the community who feel intimidated or uncomfortable in spaces of heated discussion, and who may otherwise have had valuable input.
Inequalities are often maintained through the mundane acts of good-faith actors. Even when bad faith seems apparent, there may be value in pursuing constructive discussion over argumentation. Hence my humble advice to abandon such an antagonistic angle, out of pragmatism if not conviction.
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I think this should be a new thread. This one is doomed already.
And your questions are IMHO excellent.
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what are the biggest challenges you face in setting up and maintaining local Python communities?
@lucascolley , I think the lack of replies since one week now proves that this forum is not really frequented by international communities, is it?
Plus, it is the âhome forumâ of PSF and affiliates basically, so some problems go unsaid. The following are real problems that I think it is worth naming.
I. funding uncertainty and lack of organisatorial support. Often, local communities have no clear support system, and have to build things by themselves. The opportunities by PSF are often not well advertised. If provided, grants remain uncertain, can stall, or can even be revoked. As in the few publicized cases over the last years (not just this year), e.g., the African events.
II. direct competition from US affiliated networks. I have seen instances first a local community builds something up with their blood and sweat, and then another group connected more closely to PSF sets something up, with financial and organisatorial backing. These two groups then compete for members, attendees, sponsors, with discussions being stalled and remaining unproductive. As a principle of operations, this implies a need to grovel for official blessing, and indirect pressures to onboard members of PSF adjacent influence networks to remain âon the good sideâ.
III. exclusionary mechanisms from centralized networks, for instance through soft exclusion such as lower visa mobility. For instance, people from India or Africa can usually not travel to Europe or US - and fares are even much more expensive than an average American or European would pay. Therefore, they are excluded from âflagship eventsâ like pycon US, which has gained a distinct character that âeveryone important meets hereâ - with the flipside that most of the world is de-facto excluded.
IV. requirement to obtain âlegitimacyâ from a US American organization, or loop trademark business through them. All trademarks are owned by PSF, even European or Asian ones; the example of @iqbalabd is a typical example that shows how local organization are not empowered - in terms of legal expertise or funding - to pursue their own legal interests.
A radical idea, but it could be possible to think about splitting the PSF? You could have a US-focussed ânational Python associationâ, akin to the EPS, Pyvec zs, PAO, UKPA, etc that could run PyCon US and act as a legal entity for local groups in the States; and then a âglobalâ PSF that focusses on services that are not geographically restricted to any particular country.
I fully support this idea! I do not think it is radical. It is in fact, absolutely normal if you look at multinational companies or multinational charities and their org structure! The âabnormalityâ imo is PSF.
For instance, look at a random charity like MĂ©decins sans FrontiĂšres. They are incorporated in all major jurisdictions. There is an umbrella in Switzerland, which holds international trademarks; legal assets and further trademarks are held by the local incorporations.
There are a few points why this is a much better idea:
- fundraising is possible in any international jurisdiction - tax exemption is usually tied to the incorporation locus of the entity. For instance, EU funders would be less likely to donate if they cannot deduct taxes.
- impartiality and neutrality - fairer representation of the international community, and lower likelihood to be influenced by US politics.
- risk diversification, e.g., the fate of the international organization not being tied to the single risk of, say, pycon US (50% of the yearly PSF budget!). Risk is also mitigated through diversified donor base, e.g., not tied to economy or political opinions of a single country (e.g., xenophobia).
- Higher international democratic legitimacy, especially if managers and decision makers are not all US based or US affiliated.
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You mean excluding the multiple people who did respond?
Or are Czech, Germany and Japan not international in your view? Or is your definition of week not 7 days?
Also âlocal around the worldâ is not the same request as ânon-Americanâ.
Again, itâs genuinely impressive how easily you misread simple evidence and represent facts that just arenât true.
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@MegaIng, indeed, because one of the signs of healthy discussion culture is picking one sentence, getting worked up about semantics or tone, and then ignoring the content.
Or are Czech, Germany and Japan not international in your view?
All but perhaps one person in this thread who purport to speak for interests of communities abroad are in fact subject to serious conflicts of interests with PSF directly or towards the USA.
âCzechâ - Petr Viktorin is employed by RedHat which is owned by IBM, a US based multinational. He is also not directly a local organizer as he admits here Local Python orgs around the world, and the PSF - #5 by encukou, but has more of a dispatcher role between the âcentralizedâ entities and the actual local organizers.
âGermanâ - Marc-AndrĂ© Lemburg is a former PSF director. He is in the inner circle of PSF.
Japan/Malaysia - to the state of my current knowledge, @iqbalabd is a ârealâ local organizer.
Interestingly, he echoes many of the points I also list, although in a tone that I would consider extremely humble and very cautious.
E.g., âpromote our regional communities to interested sponsors in the US, point them to PAOâ could also be phrased: âPSF is a gatekeeper of sponsorsâ. The sentence âMore opportunities to attend pycon USâ could also be phrased: âwe cannot attend due to visa blockage, insufficient timelines, and/or lack of support by PSFâ. Or, âapproving more percentage of grantsâ could be phrased: âwe get next to nothing while PSF spends millions yearly on pycon USâ.
This I think is also indirect evidence for the dynamics behind this forum and PSF more generally, which I am alluding to by âindirect pressures, people need to grovelâ - even a tiny bit of edge may trigger the mob in this forum to single out and attack a person, or, maybe, surprisingly, next year funds for the communities you represent no longer get approved or there is a grant freeze.
Do you have people supporting your cause? Ask them to come here and add their voices.
There is no reason people outside the US, or people disenchanted with the PSF, would have a harder time using this site than anyone else. They can come here and help advocate for your cause.
I understand the point about international travel visas, but the internet is available everywhere. Why arenât there people joining this forum to help you?
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Not really. Marc-Andre and I were both founding members of the PSF, worked hard to create it, and were on its first Boards. We used to be âinner circleâ for sure, at the very center in fact, but not anymore. I was even banned for 3 months by the PSF last year.. Marc-Andreâs only remaining PSF roles are as a very longstanding member of the Trademarks Committee, and still a Fellow of the foundation (mostly honorary, but does give him a vote, same as any other voting member)..
Heâs absolutely been a key player in developing infrastructure and support for European Python groups that cooperate with, but are not subservient to, the PSF. Heâs very much worth listening to.
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