[Python-cuba] [PSF-Board] Recognition of new working group

[kirby urner]

On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 8:51 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 8:36 PM, David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> wrote:
>
>> Basically, a working group might spend PSF money, but a SIG probably
>> won't. Is like that option if it becomes relevant.
>>
>
>
> That makes sense.
>
> On edu-sig, where I've been the longest (in terms of Python.org sigs) we
> plan about eduSummit and maybe EduPycon, things like that, i.e. they have
> the flavor of planning and taking action.
>
> But the sig itself is not the fiduciary authority when it comes to putting
> those plans into action.  Various subscribers work with other entities to
> make the various wheels turn.  Naomi Cedar and Jeff Elkner are among those
> who've taken an active role
>
> https://twitter.com/naomiceder
> https://twitter.com/jelkner
>


I don't want to make it sound like sigs are that easy to get though.  On
another list we were told to ask a particular email address nicely and we
might get our sig, but I knew from previous experience with diversity-sig
and psf-community (which both exist) that some of our moderators are
hostile to the whole idea of posting to their sigs.  Getting a sig
approved, in other words, means nothing if the moderator keeps the door
locked.

I'm glad this WG is getting some support.  I think that has a lot to do
with Mertz already being a PSF heavy-weight.

I'd think from a Cuban point a view a first question would be "what would
be in it for us to work with PSF?" i.e. the Python language is free and
open source and no one needs our permission to download it and teach about
it, have meetups or whatever.

So why bother with PSF at all?  Good FAQ question.

After all, we might conceivably be a front for something else, given how
nonprofits are used cynically as astroturf by politicos.  Takes due
diligence to research any NGO, to establish its bona fides.  When needs
that level of transparency consistent with getting tax breaks, but look at
churches and cults, how transparent are they?  Exactly.

For my part, I reassure even my own Quakers, a subsect of unprogrammed
Friends (Amigos) in the Pacific Northwest, always suspicious and paranoid
by training, that my involvement with PSF is ethical, despite all the
secrecy around elections.

We're up front about using e-voter technology at the Python.org web site,
on public pages, so this idea of "secrecy" is possibly over-done.  Just dig
and ye shall find.

We're aware of the need to keep walking our talk when it comes to GNU, GPL
etc. (even though the Python license itself is less strict). One can't be
going around proclaiming the virtues of "openness" while completely
concealing one's own inner workings.  That just doesn't work.

On the other hand, no one is saying a company needs to spill its guts in
public, just a 501(c)(3) is deliberately designed / organized to illuminate
its own interior (out of pride in our workmanship if nothing else, and as
the best way to attract event sponsors (fund accounting, a special kind of
accounting used with non-profits, means funders / sponsors clearly see
where their donations went)).

Kirby
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