I've put together a funding request for the development of an educational distribution of Python software. I'd like to get some feedback on the attached letter of inquiry. This version of the request is targeting the Kellogg Foundation's "Philanthropy and Volunteerism" initiative [1], but I think it could be extended and submitted for funding from the National Science Foundation's "Math and Science Partnership Program (MSP)" request for proposals [2]. The NSF proposal for MSP has a relatively short fuse. The proposals are due on December 16th. Please speak up if you are interested in participating on the NSF work. I'd like to get a list of resumes together to add to the proposal. I have a small business that does Python development and government contracting lined up to help with managing the grant reporting and funding management. If I get some indication of interest from the list I'll work with them on submitting the application. The plan is to have the small business work with the PSF on the project and in the process we can use this activity to boostrap the PSF as a funding organization. My goal is to pursue additional funding opportunities and get related projects funded. If we can get enough work in place we should be able to eventually hire staff for PSF. As you will see from this proposal the staff would help organize and manage Python sprints. The staff would also work on getting additional funds for Python related research. I've identified over a dozen NSF programs which look like promising candidates for funding Python projects, so I think there is ample opportunity for funding. Later this week I will attending some workshops at the Foundation Center [3] that should help with identifying other potential sources of funding. (The titles of each of the sections of the letter are from the Kellogg Foundation online submission form.) [1] http://www.wkkf.org/Programming/Overview.aspx?CID=288 [2] http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03605/nsf03605.htm [3] http://www.fdncenter.org/ Letter of Inquiry for the Kellogg Foundation Purpose Statement: Development of a distribution of Python software for use in K-12 education and development of an improved version of the Python language. The mission of the educational software is described in the "Computer Programming for Everyone" (CP4E) [1] project. [1] http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html Total Dollar Amount Requested: $2,000,000 over three years Project Objectives and Proposed Activities: Python has been used very successfully to teach the fundamentals of computer science in high schools [2]. We believe this success is grounds for making Python the standard language to be used in advanced placement exams in computer science, as well as a foundation for developing computer literacy in the general population. To facilitate this goal, the Python community would like to develop an open source distribution of materials that can be used for teaching computer science (See the CP4E paper for more information on the overall project goals.) This would be a living project in which materials are added as they are developed. The project would create plan the release of distributions of Python based educational software, and supporting documentation, for teaching computer science to coincide with school year schedules. (The material would be made available through a website, but also as ISO images that could be downloaded and burned onto CDROMs.) A second component of the proposed grant would fund the development of Python 3.0. This new revision of the Python language would add improvements to the language that will strengthen the language distribution and make it even better as a tool for teaching computer science. [2] http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/frank/elkner_0300.html Time Schedules or Anticipated Duration of Proposed Grant: The distributions of educational materials will be an on-going activity. Developing Python 3.0 is expected to take two to three years to complete. Anticipated Outcomes: The funding would facilitate the assemble of a comprehensive collection of software and educational material for use in teaching computer programming using Python. And it would help to expedite the development of the Python 3.0. The funding would be used to host a series of "sprint" workshops for Python experts and to fund some researchers to work part-time and possibly full-time on Python software development and packaging. The "sprint" workshop development model has been successfully used to improve the rate at which open source software can be developed. While most of the work can be done via the Internet, there is a need for periodic person to person communications in a "sprint" setting. These meetings usually include presentations and demonstrations of software that is being proposed as an improvement or an addition to the software distributions. The dialogs that take place at the workshops are extremely effective at stimulating new ideas and energizing the community of volunteers. Unfortunately not all volunteers can afford to pay their way to attend sprints. The funding would help insure that the all the major contributors to Python are able to attend the sprints. A major goal of funding this activity will be to develop material that will make it feasible to promote Python as a viable replacement of Java as the standard language for Advanced Placement exams in computer science. Java was selected because it was widely used, not because it was particularly good as a tool for teaching computer science. In fact, there are a number of limitations of Java that make it a poor choice for teaching the full scope of objectives that should be taught in a modern computer science curriculum. Experience with using Python at the college CS1 and CS2 level [3] indicate that Python would be a more effective language for quickly teaching the fundamentals of computer science at the undergraduate level. The referenced papers outline the many technical reasons for Python being a better language for teaching computer science. It is important to note that Python is not just at teaching language, such as Pascal or ABC. Python is a pragmatic and efficient technology that used by serious computer scientists throughout the industry. [3] http://mcsp.wartburg.edu/zelle/python/python-first.html Personnel and Financial Resources Available: The Python community includes a world-wide assembly of world-class software developers. As an open source software project, like Linux, all of the source code is available online [4]. There are 57 persons with commit privileges to the Python software repository and several hundred additional contributors who submit software without commit access. There are also thousands of applications and extension modules [5] that are written in Python that are not part of the standard Python distribution. The main Python language website [6] provides a portal into the community of activity. The in-kind support of this community is enormous. The core language developers devote thousands of hours per year to the development of the language distribution. One measure of this effort can be found by browsing the email list of the core developers. There have been over 20,000 email messages to this list over the last two years. Browsing the content of the email archives reveals a devoted community of philanthropy and volunteerism. The proposed grant would leverage this work by enabling some of these volunteer to travel to meetings and by compensating some of the drudge work that might otherwise not be done . [4]http://sourceforge.net/projects/python/ [5]http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=178 and an example of education specific projects at http://schooltool.org/ [6]http://www.python.org/ [7]http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/ Sustainability Strategy: The Python community has been working on the development of Python since 1991 and they have received awards and industry recognition for the excellence of their work. Work on the development of Python is an perfect example of how the Internet has enabled philanthropy and volunteerism. The community has a very good track record for delivering results without any funding and the community may eventually create a 3.0 release. The resources of the core contributors are limited, however, and in order for some of the key developers to work on Python 3.0 and on the development of the educational distribution, some direct funding support will be required. This funding is primarily intended to accelerate the process. The funding would be of particular importance to K-12 educators. They are generally underpaid and have no travel budgets. Without funding it will be impossible for them to attend Python sprints. Ideally we could arrange for some of the leaders in this arena to be funded for work on a Python based curriculum during their summer recess. Funding the CP4E Python effort will enable them to devote resources to preparing polished and professional educational material that can be shared by all school systems throughout the world.