Mailman 3 March 2011 - Inpycon

Re: [Inpycon] Receiving funds from foreign sponsors
by Kenneth Gonsalves March 17, 2011

March 17, 2011

On Mon, 2011-03-14 at 18:05 +0530, Ramdas S wrote: > > X is IPSS, Y is an Indian company, Z is foreign sponsor. Please note > that > I'm suggesting is 100% legal, to my best of knowledge. Y is > facilitating a > foreign collaborator to sponsor an Indian event, and for which Y will > pay > service tax, and since the service does not belong to any of the > illegal > services, and is accounted for, I do not see any issues. > > it is violating the law in spirit if not in the letter. -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves http://lawgon.livejournal.com/

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Receiving funds from foreign sponsors
by Noufal Ibrahim March 15, 2011

March 15, 2011

Hello everyone, Greetings from PyCon Atlanta. I've spoken to a couple of people here who are interested in sponsoring our conference this year. They're companies based outside India and I'm not sure what we have to do to to receive funds from abroad. I'd hate to start serious discussions with them without being sure of the details. Can someone who's knowledgeable about this post details? Thanks. --

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Re: [Inpycon] Receiving funds from foreign sponsors
by Kenneth Gonsalves March 14, 2011

March 14, 2011

On Mon, 2011-03-14 at 17:46 +0530, Ramdas S wrote: > > perfectly legal and very common in the older days when banks were > not > > all that reliable. (there is also the black type of hawala). But the > > point here is that the courts may take it as us trying to get > foreign > > contributions through the back door. Or are we going to do this > without > > any record? It is just not worth it. And authorities are very very > > sticky when it comes to non profits. And the office bearers will get > it > > in the neck. > > > > > X bills Y > > Y bills Z > > Z pays Y, Y pays service tax on the amount and pays X which's > non-profit > entity. Z becomes the sponsor. Bills are clean. Govt gets its money, > they > will be happy. CAs would sign on this and so would auditors. At least > mine > would. who is X here? IPSS? -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves http://lawgon.livejournal.com/

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Re: [Inpycon] Receiving funds from foreign sponsors
by Kenneth Gonsalves March 14, 2011

March 14, 2011

On Mon, 2011-03-14 at 17:36 +0530, Ramdas S wrote: > No this is not hawala. Hawala involves no billing and the money comes > as > black (in cash). Here the entire transaction will be clean. Worst come > case, > we can pay 10.3% for service tax. hawala basically means this: I have to pay Y in delhi. I pay X in Ooty X pays Y in Delhi. perfectly legal and very common in the older days when banks were not all that reliable. (there is also the black type of hawala). But the point here is that the courts may take it as us trying to get foreign contributions through the back door. Or are we going to do this without any record? It is just not worth it. And authorities are very very sticky when it comes to non profits. And the office bearers will get it in the neck. -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves http://lawgon.livejournal.com/

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Foreign delegates
by Noufal Ibrahim March 6, 2011

March 6, 2011

Any ideas on who we want to invite? I think atleast 3 of us on the list are attending the PyCon in Atlanta this year and we might be able to talk to people first hand to get them to come if we decide on the details. The general use of Python in India as far as I can tell is for web related programming so perhaps some notable from the Django, Pinax, Pylons etc. communities? Other good speakers that come to mind are Raymond Hettinger (core Python), Ian Bicking(infrastructure, web, packaging), Michael Foord(testing), David Beazley (concurrency). --

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suggestions for PyCon India
by David Goodger March 5, 2011

March 5, 2011

[I found this in my email drafts folder; thought I'd sent it long ago. Hopefully it isn't stale ;-) ] Hi all, I had a great time in Bangalore, and I was impressed by the size & scope of PyCon India in only its second year. I have some suggestions based on my experience organizing the US PyCon over the years. Some have already been mentioned here (I know I heard some discussed). * You should add time between talks, 5 or 10 minutes. Attendees need time for moving between rooms, and the next speakers need time to set up their laptops. * At PyCon US, we have "time remaining" signs: 10 minutes, 5 minutes, STOP. These are very useful for the session chair (MC), who can be sitting in or near the front row and watching a clock. * Speakers should be encouraged (required) to repeat any questions they are asked. Often the people on the other side of the room cannot hear the questions. The recordings rarely pick up the questions. * Speakers and MC's should feel free to defer questions to the end of a talk, especially if the questioner is insistent. * Speakers should not run off immediately after a talk, but move swiftly to the hallway and answer any after-talk questions. * As you grow, you may choose to add parallel features (e.g. open space) and secondary events (e.g. development sprints, tutorials). You already had the FOSSEE sessions for beginners, a great idea! But take it slowly, and don't add anything before you're ready. * I noticed some audio feedback when people were speaking. This can be reduced by placing the microphone closer to the speaker's mouth. The further away, the higher the gain must be, and the more likely feedback becomes. Something to tell your speakers. * These kinds of instructions for speakers can be printed up ahead of time, and given to speakers and MCs. If you're interested, I can get the instruction sheet from US PyCon. * A "green room" is very useful: a room for speakers with a spare projector (to test laptop connections), wired network connections, a printer, water, etc. This can double as a conference office. * WiFi at conferences is always an issue. 802.11 was not designed for such high user densities. In a nutshell, at PyCon US we deploy lots of real APs (not laptops!), at low power (important!) on alternating channels, to reduce interference. We are lucky to have Sean Reifschneider, a sysadmin and networking guru who has effectively deployed wireless for many years. Sean has written reports about PyCon's wireless here: http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/pycon2010-network/ (with links to earlier years). * Pre-printed badges with icons for speakers (and anything else you want to track) are a good way to see at a glance who is missing. * It's best to avoid staggered starting times. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but try hard! * One way to handle the lunch/break rush is to stagger the *ends* of talks just before lunch/breaks. For example, some talks can end 15 minutes later than others. * Lightning talks are particularly popular at US PyCon, to the point where it was unfair to schedule other talks against them, so we made them plenary. * For North American conferences, as you grow in attendance, costs go up per-person (you have to move from free space to hotels or conference centers). If this is true in India as well, you may consider holding multiple regional conferences instead of one national conference. It's not ideal, but it's one way to keep costs down. * I noticed a large drop-off in attendance between Saturday and Sunday. It seems to have happened last year as well. Why is that? Most importantly: notwithstanding any of the above, please don't imitate any other conference too closely. It would be a shame to lose the unique character of PyCon India. -- David Goodger <http://python.net/~goodger>

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CFP draft
by Anand Balachandran Pillai March 3, 2011

March 3, 2011

Here is a very early CFP draft proposal. http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyConIndia2011/CFP This is much the same as last year. I would like feedback on, 1. Dates 2. Format 3. Topics - Should we highlight some topics or add more topics (remove some also ?) Please send this to me by end of the week (Friday) or discuss in the list. Plan to work on the CFP on the website during the week-end. I have given Mar 7 as a tentative date. However I would like the CFP to go live no later than March 10. -- --Anand

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