How to promote Python in the Federal government?

[Kevin Altis]

Promoting Python would be a nice BOF session for PyCon. Some general issues
could be covered and then sub-groups such as federal government, science,
enterprise could split up to discuss specific issues and then post
suggestions to the Python wiki....

Ideas for promoting Python are always welcome on the marketing-python
mailing list.

http://pythonology.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing-python

ka

"Stephen Ferg" <steve at ferg.org> wrote in message
news:b16e4ef7.0303030843.1dfc2aea at posting.google.com...
> Currently, the level of Python-awareness in the Federal government (or
> at least at my agency in Washington DC) is extremely low.  Most
> programmers and managers aren't even aware of the existence of a
> programming language named "Python".  Most managers are barely aware
> of open-source software, and would never switch to open-source from
> Microsoft for fear of "lack of support"!  A few of our technical
> people are very enthusiastic about open-source -- but for most of
> them, "open-source" equates only to Linux, Apache, and Perl.
>
> I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to change this situation.
>
> I thought of running a sort of "Python awareness" campaign, but (if
> conducted electronically) that would probably be indistinguishable
> from spam.
>
> I thought of trying to create a Federal Python Users Group (FedPy?).
> The purpose of FedPy would be to raise awareness of Python and its
> capabilities among Federal agencies, and to (at least) provide a
> membership list that might help Federal Pythonistas (employees and
> contractors) to know about and communicate with each other.  But user
> groups don't seem to flourish here -- the local Python/Zope user group
> is moribund.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> -- Steve Ferg
>
> <name>  Stephen Ferg    </name>
> <email>  ferg_s at bls.gov   </email>
> <phone> 202-691-7257 </phone>
> <address>
> Bureau of Labor Statistics, Room 5110
> 2 Mass. Ave. NE
> Washington, DC 20212-0001
> USA
> </address>