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

Feb. 12, 2002

A regular regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation (the "PSF") Board of Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat at 1:00 pm EST. Guido van Rossum, president of the Foundation and chairman of the Board, presided at the meeting.

1. Attendance

The following members of the Board of Directors were present at the meeting: Jeremy Hylton, Tim Peters, Guido van Rossum, Marc-Andre Lemburg, David Ascher. The following members were absent: Thomas Wouters, Martin von Loewis. Thomas was logged in to capture the conversation.

A quorum was present.

2. Administrative items

  • Member meeting minutes. Jeremy Hylton promised to send out the (draft) minutes of the recent member meeting today.
  • Invoices. Jeremy Hylton will send out invoices to current and new sponsors; for new sponsors, he commits to sending out the invoice within a week of receiving he application form. It is noted that sponsorship fees are prorated over the calendar year, so a sponsor joining on February 1 pays 11/12th of the sponsorship fee for that year.
  • Application forms. Jeremy Hylton will create application forms for regular members and for sponsor members. These will be posted on the PSF website. The forms will be of the "print-and-mail-or-fax" variety since real wet signatures are required. Hylton will mail these forms to the board today and the board will comment by tomorrow 2pm EST.
  • Inviting new members. This action must wait pending the application form. Jeremy Hylton will invite all new members as soon as the form is approved and put up on the website.
  • Tax filing. Jeremy Hylton will do this.
  • 501(c)(3) application. Guido van Rossum volunteered to chair the 501(c)(3) application committee, and Tim Peters, Marc-Andre Lemburg and Jeremy Hylton volunteered to serve on the committee. The committee has to wait until a mission statement is approved, see agenda item 5.

3. Meet the new board

Every director present greeted every other director present.

4. PSF website

Guido van Rossum proposed to convert the website from Zope to CVS, and henceforth maintain it using the same CVS setup as the rest of python.org. This was approved unanimously. Van Rossum will try to do this today or tomorrow. He will also get Barry Warsaw and/or Thomas Wouters to give David Ascher a login.

David Ascher will write a webpage about how & why to become a PSF sponsor.

5. Mission statement

The PSF needs a mission statement so it can be used in our application for 501(c)(3) charity status with the IRS. The application needs to be filed at the latest in May 2002 (within 15 months of incorporation).

All present except Guido van Rossum volunteered to help write the mission statement. This discussion will take place on the PSF-board mailing list.

David Ascher volunteered to ask Greg Stein (ASF) and his connections at Yet Another Society for examples of their (successful) 501(c)(3) status application.

6. Adjournment

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:00 pm EST.