Python Software Foundation: Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting (July 12, 2005)

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

July 12, 2005

A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation (the "PSF") Board of Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat at 17:00 UTC, July 12, 2005. Stephan Deibel presided at the meeting.

1 Attendance

The following members of the Board of Directors were present at the meeting: Stephan Deibel, Tim Peters, Martin von Löwis, Andrew M. Kuchling, and David Ascher. Kurt B. Kaiser (Treasurer) and David Goodger (Assistant Secretary) were also in attendance. D. Goodger prepared these minutes.

2 Meeting minutes of past meetings

The December 2004 minutes (finally!) were approved with a 3-0-2 vote.

The June 2005 minutes were approved with a 5-0-0 vote.

3 SSL Certificates

A. Kuchling reported that Barry Warsaw wants to purchase 5 SSL certificates for svn.python.org, www.python.org, mail.python.org, cheeseshop.python.org, and wiki.python.org. They cost $49/year per certificate (wildcard certificates cost $449/year, which is not economical with fewer than 10 domain names). The difference between purchased and self-signed certificates was discussed; it was agreed that purchased certificates were worth the expense. It was then

RESOLVED: To allocate up to $260 to compensate Barry Warsaw for purchasing 5 SSL certificates for python.org hosts. ($260, not $245, to allow for sales tax.)

Approved with a 5-0-0 vote.

4 Status Reports

4.1 Grants Committee

M. von Löwis reported that Greg Wilson has completed the first part of work for his grant, and expressed the hope that Paul Dubois would review it.

4.2 Infrastructure Committee

A. Kuchling reported that:

The python.org web pages now reside in the Subversion (SVN) repository.
SVN accounts have been created for everyone [who had CVS access].
The CVS repository on python.org has been disabled.
make install still pushes pages to creosote, not to the new machine.
Some accounts have been rsync'ed over [to the new machine].

Remaining tasks: PyPI & static www service. Kuchling is trying to sync with Richard Jones on PyPI, but has not succeeded yet due to Richard being busy and Andrew being mildly ill. His goal is to complete the move before the August board meeting.

4.3 Public Support Committee

S. Deibel reports that not much has happened, mostly due to being busy with other things. He expressed the desire to get the fund raising end of the PSF going better, with volunteers and people that have time and vision.

4.4 Conference Committee

A. Kuchling posted a status report to the psf-board mailing list. Summary:

A site decision for PyCon 2006 has been made: Addison, Texas, a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth, at the Marriott Hotel. The winning bid was made by the Dallas/Fort Worth Python user group.

A major issue was the high cost of wireless, which amounted to $30/person/day; the DFW group has gotten this down to $7/person/day. Jeff Rush is now working on getting a hotel contract for us to look at.

PyCon 2006's schedule is: February 23 through March 2, 2006:

Wed, Feb 22 Setup

Thu, Feb 23 Tutorials

Fri, Feb 24 PyCon day 1

Sat, Feb 25 PyCon day 2

Sun, Feb 26 PyCon day 3

Mon, Feb 27 Sprints 1

Tue, Feb 28 Sprints 2

Wed, Mar 1 Sprints 3

Thu, Mar 2 Sprints 4 / teardown

Room occupancy: the tentative figure is that PyCon will have an 850-room-night block, of which 80% (= 680 room nights) will need to be filled. This is OK if we assume 550 attendees. (Figure, if everyone shares: 550 attendes × 3 nights/person ÷ 2 people/room = 825 room nights. Adding occupied nights during the sprints provides a buffer.) Even if we only got 400 attendees, we might reach our target (but it would be tight).

Current actions: waiting for hotel contract; getting CFP (call for proposals) ready to post once the contract is signed and the dates are nailed down; setting up a PyCon weblog for publicity purposes.

5 New Business

M. von Löwis began discussions on a "Python release committee". The first decision to make is whether Python releases should be a "PSF product". If yes, the PSF members should be asked if they agree. For the PSF, the advantage would be better visibility.

Anthony Baxter is Python's all-purpose release manager, with a time plan that he tends to follow. T. Peters asked what a Python release committee would do that Anthony isn't already doing. M. von Löwis said that Anthony should be asked whether he wants to chair such a committee.

A discussion ensued, touching on the following issues:

This should be a community decision.
What problem is trying to be solved? Is the status quo broken?
Are Python releases a PSF product or a python-dev product?
The PSF holds the copyright on Python and sets the license.
Historically, many decisions were left to the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life, Guido van Rossum).
What impact has Guido's resignation from the PSF board had? It's likely that Guido is having less time and interest; he'd rather spend what time he has working on the language. At some point, we may need to figure out a new governing style for Python development.

The discussion then centered on the issue of migrating the Python codebase from CVS to SVN:

Whose decision would it be to move from [SourceForge's] CVS to SVN?
If the python-dev crew want to move to SVN, they should. If they don't, they won't. The PSF should facilitate what they need with cash or whatever, but it's about letting people do the work the way they see fit.
Nobody acted on converting from CVS to Subversion because nobody felt they had the power to do so.
SourceForge is studying SVN for possible future deployment.
We benefit greatly from SourceForge features, saving a lot of work -- perhaps more than most developers appreciate.
The biggest cost to switching is the data migration.
Those who really want it must be willing to gather the effort and do the work.

The final consensus was that there were enough complications that a tangible plan would be a good idea. Someone must care enough to write a PEP. M. von Löwis volunteered.

6 Adjournment

Stephan Deibel adjourned the meeting at 18:00 UTC.