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Most people I know who use Python as a serious data processing language don't care much what's in the stdlib because they're using numpy and/or

I am well aware of https://www.blender.org/institute/ and I like it. And recently I realized that my claims and accusations towards PSF are just wrong. PSF is a fund - it should process the money to ensure Python Community has at lest some degree of independence from sponsors. It is not its role to register domains, maintain servers, assign copyright to itself from contributors - it is not its role to do anything at all. PSF waits for initiatives to appear and then supports them, but the problem is - there are not many initiatives (except website, which is well, <opinionated opinion stripped>). And that's the problem that PSF is not solving, because it can not do this. It can not just do what it wants - grab a bunch of people together to solve a particular problem, provide them with a place to do stuff, with access to funding from people interested in certain initiative, direct contact with them, being interested people from outside into the team and do other nasty things (like filming movies!). PSF holds a lot of responsibility and therefore is not effective for research works and experiments. This things that PSF can not do, and nobody can, because economy doesn't allow this: 1. Maintain a list of top 10 stdlib modules that need a redesign The one is gathered there: http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2009/07/informal-poll-what-python-stdlib.html Try with Python community a usability study to find out "why people feel these things need a redesign". 2. Do economic study on Python contributions How many people could escape the corporate "slavery" to do the necessary work for high quality patches. Are they allowed to work on Python, do they feel stressed, etc. How do they feel the economic model helps Python development, is there a way for alternative models that help more people to jump in to make good thing better. 3. Get data on Python services, develop participation tools bugs.python.org is not only a GSoC project. There are a lot of things that can be improved, should be improved and the issues are not trivial. 4. Publish a research what will happen if Python 2.8 is released Study the things like https://gist.github.com/techtonik/574401cebf5e17c33f5b with reports on income and outcomes that could actually be referenced (unlike mails, which are good, but hard to filter). 5. Get data on Python usage, a set of areas and most popular use cases This is came from Geo coordinates conversion module in stdlib. pandas.

Yes, and that's sad that the Python still doesn't have the basic building blocks of Pandas in stdlib.

Study the idea of making a stlib that consists from modules that cover the most common scenarios of using the scripting language, provide a "toy modules" that cover these common scenarios - a mini demos of more powerful tools, like a "swiss-knives toolbelt". 6. Get a tools on measuring Python stdlib usage Build a linked semantic AST from all packages on PyPI (vector data like OpenStreetMap, but from the language level objects). This will allow to grep how many times a particular module is used, and allow people to use that database to extend into their own research (like trying to guess context and usage scenarios for stdlib calls). 7. Record a summaries of Python evolution, build media materials Visual information requires much much much less time to be consumed, but requires a significant amount of time to produce. PyCon talks are exceptionally good for video material, but for the community coordination, a lot of HTML5 and dynamic design works needs to be done. PSF won't be able to make it interesting to HTML5 folks, because it is solely about Python itself, and the object of Python Research Institute include everything that goes side by side and influences the development of the project and community around it. From "cultural aspects of Monty Python in context of computer language programming" to "feasibility of designing an operating system in stackless" and "test of new economic models for sustainable Python development" etc. I just can't stop with ideas - research how appearance of startup scene affected open source contributions, research why open source project die and how to prevent that, what happened with former Python contributors and where their interest is now, how other languages compare to Python, what are the key problems of converting Python code to other languages, how to deal with complexity etc., what this "agile" is about and could it be useful for Python development etc. Please, tell me if that is a worthy utopia and add your ideas.