Devs: I've been in correspondence with Microsoft about the provision of software, and it transpires that if you want to support Windows better Microsoft will be quite liberal about licensing: they will *give* you a Microsoft Developer Network license. If you are interested in offering better Windows support then please read the email below (note: Windows buildbot support would be a qualifying activity) and let me have the required details. I will pass them to Tom in bulk to simplify the processing. Note that I'm not following python-dev right now due to pressure of work, so PLEASE EMAIL ME DIRECTLY (or Cc me on your list replies) to make sure I get your information. Thanks! regards Steve -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: Support for Python: Windows Buildbots Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 08:52:10 -0700 From: Tom Hanrahan For the purposes of providing MSDN licenses to an open source development community, I consider anyone who writes, builds, tests or documents software to be a "developer who contributes" to the project. (In fact, having started out as a test engineer, I would take exception to anyone who claimed only people who write code are "developers" :-) We do ask that requests are for people who are active contributors and not just minor/occasional participants. [...] Here's what we need for each request: First Name Last Name Email Address (the subscription will be sent here, and this will also be used to log into the MSDN site) Project/Company (Python Software Foundation) Complete Mailing Address (Street Address) (City), (State/Province) (Postal or Zip Code) (Country) Phone Number -- Tom -----Original Message----- From: Steve Holden [mailto:steve@holdenweb.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 6:01 AM To: Tom Hanrahan Cc: Anandeep Pannu; Pat Campbell; Python Board; Jim Hugunin Subject: Re: Support for Python: Windows Buildbots Tom: Further to Sam's email, in fact the original inquiry was instituted by the need of our part-time administrator to acquire an Office license. I am guessing she wouldn't qualify as an Open Source Developer, but that least naturally to the more interesting question of who would. A Bing search for "Microsoft Open Source Developer Program" didn't yield any usable hits, so it might be helpful if you could point me to some web resources that will help me make sense of what's available, who's eligible and how they apply for it. I will be happy to publicize the details to the development team. It's true, I believe, that most of the core Python developers use Linux, but both Tim Peters and I are primarily on the Windows platform. What's more, with the emergence of virtualization environments having Linux on your desktop is no hindrance to running Windows in a virtual machine (I run Linux on virtuals when appropriate). So let's take it from here and see where we go. regards Steve Sam Ramji wrote:

Steve:

If the PSF's Windows users are developers who contribute to Python, we can offer them MSDN subscriptions as part of the Open Source Developer program.

MSDN subscriptions include copies of most Microsoft products (including Office and Exchange) for use while developing and testing software. For more details, check here - we provide Visual Studio Pro with MSDN Premium under this program (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscriptionschart.aspx).

Tom Hanrahan is the Director of the Open Source Technology Center, and is the sponsor of the Open Source Developer program. I've copied him here - please contact him directly with the details of the people who would like to participate. He's at hanrahat@microsoft.com.

We definitely want to make Windows a friendly place for Python developers!

Cheers,

Sam

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