Welcome Newly Elected Members

The Foundation recently held elections after PyCon 2013, and the results are in!

All members of the PSF are nominated by an existing member for their work in the Python community. We have quite a diverse set of community members joining us this year, with representation across many countries and individuals contributing to many areas of the Python world.

As with years past, a group of individuals known for their contributions of code, either to Python implementations or other projects in the Python ecosystem, were elected. We also have a number of members recognized for their work with PyCon and other Python conferences around the world. Community effort is another theme and we have several members known for their work building and expanding their local Python communities as well as the global community.

Please join us in welcoming all of the new members to the Foundation!

• Érico Andrei
• Kamon Ayeva
• Reimar Bauer
• Diana Clarke
• Robert Collins
• Simon Cross
• Katie Cunningham
• Kushal Das
• Ned Deily
• Jeremy Dunck
• Emmanuelle Gouillart
• Olivier Grisel
• Eric Holscher
• Mathieu Leduc-Hamel
• Chris Neugebauer
• Terri Oda
• Jason Pellerin
• Lynn Root
• Osvaldo Santana
• Hynek Schlawack
• Anthony Scopatz
• Barbara Shaurette
• Gael Varoquaux
• Stefan van der Walt
• Stephane Wirtel

The Board of Directors also held elections, and the spots of departing members were filled. The Foundation wishes to thank Steve Holden, Andrew Kuchling, and Martin von Löwis for all of their time devoted to Python, the PSF, and to its board over all of their long tenures with the organization.

Eight board members were re-elected to their positions, and three new members were elected to join the board under Van Lindberg's chairmanship. The new board members are:

• Brett Cannon
• Alex Gaynor
• Lynn Root

The full membership list is available at http://www.python.org/psf/members/.

Congratulations to Fernando Perez, Recipient of FSF’s Advancement of Free Software Award

On Saturday March 23, Dr. Fernando Perez was presented the Free Software Foundation’s annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his work on IPython. The award “is given annually to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software.”

Fernando, who was elected to the PSF in 2010, received the award at LibrePlanet 2013, which took place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He dedicated the award to the late John Hunter, creator of matplotlib, who passed away last August. John was posthumously awarded the Foundation’s Distinguished Service Award.

The Foundation congratulates Fernando on his great work on IPython and his efforts all around the community!

For more information, see the FSF’s announcement: https://www.fsf.org/news/2012-free-software-award-winners-announced-2

Farewell Malcolm

While we celebrated the Python community last week at PyCon, we quietly lost one of our own. Malcolm Tredinnick, core Django developer and longtime member of the PSF passed away this past weekend.

Malcolm embodied the type of ideals that we all strive for in the Python community. He was known both for his code and for his kindness, for his intelligence and his humanity. Malcolm was a regular in the #django channel on IRC. It might have been intimidating to new users to be chatting with the author of the Django ORM, but he always took the time to put people at ease and answer their questions.

We are grateful to have known Malcolm. We will miss him.

As Barbara Shaurette wrote:

"""
I encourage everyone to honor Malcolm's memory by following his example.

Submit that patch for a Django ORM ticket that you've putting off for a while.

Go into #django and help some new users.

Answer questions. Be nice.
"""

Memorial page on Storify
Official announcement on the Django website

Python Software Foundation Reaches Settlement, Ends Trademark Dispute

via Marketwire

The Python Software Foundation has reached a settlement in its recent trademark dispute with PO Box Hosting Limited trading as Veber in Europe. The issue centered around Veber's use of the Python name for their cloud hosting services and their application for a figurative trademark incorporating the word "Python". While the Foundation retains the trademark for Python within the United States, it did not have a filing within the European Union. According to the terms of the settlement, Veber has withdrawn its trademark filing and has agreed to support the Python Software Foundation's use of the term.

The amicable agreement reached between the two sides will result in a rebranding of Veber's Python cloud server and backup services, which continue to be available at http://www.veber.co.uk. Veber will rebrand the Python services later under a yet to be determined name.

"We are happy to come to an agreement with Veber," said Van Lindberg, chairman of the Python Software Foundation. "What the PSF wants most is to support the global community of Python developers. To Veber's credit, they were willing to recognize the Python brand without protracted negotiations. We are grateful for Veber's support and we wish them luck in their business."

Tim Poultney, Managing Director of PO Box Hosting and Veber, said, "Veber are pleased to have reached a speedy and amicable agreement with the Python Software Foundation. The use of the Python name for our cloud server and backup business has ceased with the services now available in Europe from Veber. This agreement will remove potential confusion between the Python software language and our cloud services business."

The Foundation thanks the Python community for their immense outpouring of support throughout the dispute, both financially and through the letter writing campaign undertaken by organizations across European Union member states.

Get ready for Google Summer of Code

Python project contributors and student enthusiasts, mark your calendars: Google Summer of Code applications open soon!

Google Summer of Code is an annual, global program pairing student developers with mentors in open source projects for paid summer internships.

You can learn more about this year's Google Summer of Code here.

Python projects

Python serves as an umbrella organization for around a dozen open source Python projects each year. Last year Python core, mailman, Pandas, PyGame, Pylons, PySide, PySoy, scikit-learn, statsmodels, Tryton, and Twisted participated.

If your Python project is interested in participating in Google Summer of Code under the Python umbrella, it's time to start preparing your applications:

1. Tell the Python Google Summer of Code coordinators that your project wants to participate! Follow the instructions on the Python wiki.
2. Review last year's projects and their idea pages.
3. Start outlining candidate student projects. Good student projects are detailed, can be broken down into step-by-step goals, and are realistic in scope and difficulty for a 3-month student intern.
4. Start gathering mentors. We recommend that each student have both a primary and backup mentor.

Important deadlines

• March 18: Mentoring organizations can begin submitting applications to Google.
• March 29: Mentoring organization application deadline.

Students

Google Summer of Code is a paid summer internship program for college/university students who will be 18 years of age or older on May 27, 2013. Participating in Google Summer of Code is a great way to develop real-world software engineering skills while giving back to an open source Python project you love.

Read more about eligibility in the FAQ.

If you are interested in participating in Google Summer of Code under the Python umbrella, it's time to start exploring potential projects and practicing the tools of open source development:

1. Read the Python Google Summer of Code guidelines.
2. Review last year's projects and their idea pages.
3. Start practicing the tools of open source development, including:
   
   • IRC
   • a revision control system like git or svn
   • the diff and patch utilities
   • bug trackers

If you've never used some of these tools before, don't worry! You have plenty of time to practice. A good resource for getting familiar with these tools is the OpenHatch training missions.

Important deadlines

• April 8: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on theGoogle Summer of Code 2013 site.
• April 9 - 21: Student applicants discuss application ideas with mentoring organizations.
• April 22: Student application period opens.
• May 3: Student application deadline.

Note that the best way to boost your chances of being accepted for Google Summer of Code is to start contributing to a project before you apply. If you have questions about how to get started or just want some friendly encouragement, visit the OpenHatch project and say hello.

Introducing Electronic Contributor Agreements

We're happy to announce the new way to file a contributor agreement: on the web at http://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/.

Through the use of Adobe's EchoSign, we got rid of the old hand-written, print out, scan or photograph, then fax or email of your form. It was a hassle for our contributors, and a hassle for our administrators. Faxes fail, mail gets lost, and sometimes pictures or scans turn out poorly. It was time to find a more user-friendly solution, and the Foundation is happy to finally offer this electronic form.

The new form is easy to fill out right on the site, guiding you through each of the required fields such as your name, bug tracker ID, address, and initial license. If you're signing the form on behalf of an organization, there's a check box to specify this, and then you are asked near the bottom to state your title in the organization. Lastly, your signature is either generated from your typed name, or you can draw your own or upload a signature file of your own.

Once you submit the form, you'll receive an email from echosign.com to verify the email address you entered. Once you click to confirm your address, the form will be emailed to the PSF and will be recorded.

We require all contributors to CPython to have a signed form, and we hope this makes it easier for potential contributors to join up and help make Python better. It's available just in time for PyCon and the CPython sprint that will be occurring March 18 through 21 in Santa Clara, California. Join us at the sprint, sign your contributor form, and help us fix some bugs or add some features!

An Update on Our Trademark Issue

A few days ago, we reached out for help to gather evidence about the use of “Python” in Europe. We received an overwhelming response from the community, with hundreds of letters from individuals, companies, and universities, as well as scans of articles, book covers, conference T-shirts, and brochures. It has been truly been amazing to see.

Unfortunately, we also saw that there were a few who decided to directly attack the people and the company we are opposing. We put out a call for civility - and we want to emphasize that any hacktivism or threats will end up hurting the Python community in the long run. This is not who we are or how we act.

Although the issues have not yet been resolved, we are engaged in good-faith negotiations with the head of Veber, and we hope and expect that we will be able to announce a settlement soon.

Signed,

Van Lindberg
Chairman, Python Software Foundation

Asking for civility during our trademark dispute

When we first announced our trademark issues yesterday, we immediately and continually received a great outpouring of support from our community. The number of supporting emails in our inbox is tremendous, and the financial support has been incredible. For this, we thank all of you.

However, it has come to our attention that the organization with which we are currently involved in a trademark dispute has been receiving messages from our community members, including threats. We ask that no matter who you support in this matter, that you remain civil in your communications and actions.

It is important that we maintain the positive and friendly atmosphere that Python is known for regardless of the situation at hand.

Python trademark at risk in Europe: We need your help!

For a French translation of this post, click here.

For anyone who works in a company that has an office in a EU Community member state, we need your help.

There is a company in the UK that is trying to trademark the use of the term "Python" for all software, services, servers... pretty much anything having to do with a computer. Specifically, it is the company that got a hold on the python.co.uk domain 13 years ago. At that time we weren't looking a lot at trademark issues, and so we didn't get that domain.

This hasn't been an issue since then because the python.co.uk domain has, for most of its life, just forwarded its traffic on to the parent companies, veber.co.uk and pobox.co.uk. Unfortunately, Veber has decided that they want to start using the name "Python" for their server products.

We contacted the owners of python.co.uk repeatedly and tried to discuss the matter with them. They blew us off and responded by filing the community trademark application claiming the exclusive right to use "Python" for software, servers, and web services - everywhere in Europe. 

We got legal counsel in the UK and we (the PSF) are opposing the community trademark application, but our own trademark application hasn't yet matured. Accordingly, we are going with the trademark rights we have developed through using "Python" consistently over the past 20 years. 

According to our London counsel, some of the best pieces of evidence we can submit to the European trademark office are official letters from well-known companies "using PYTHON branded software in various member states of the EU" so that we can "obtain independent witness statements from them attesting to the trade origin significance of the PYTHON mark in connection with the software and related goods/services." We also need evidence of use throughout the EU.

What can you do?
1. Do you work for a company that uses Python? Are in the EU, do you hire in the EU, or do you have an office in the EU? Could you write a letter on company letterhead that we can forward to our EU counsel? 

We would want: 

1. just a brief description of how Python is used at your company, 
2. how your company looks for and recognizes "Python" as only coming from the PSF, and 
3. your view that another company using term Python to refer to services, software, and servers would be confusing

This doesn't need to be long - just a couple of paragraphs, but we would want any description of how you use Python for software, web hosting, Internet servers, VPNs, design and development of computer hardware or software, hosting websites, renting servers (like Openstack), or backup services. For those who are interested the specific class descriptions are at the bottom of this message. [1][2]

You can send a PDF copy of the letter to psf-trademarks@python.org

2. Do you have, or know of, anything that was published in the EU and uses "Python" to refer to Python-the-language? Can we get copies, pictures, or scans? This includes:

• Books
• Pamphlets
• Conference programs or talks
• Job listings
• Magazines or other publications
• Prospectuses

You can send a PDF scan of the materials to psf-trademarks@python.org

3. You can also help protect the Python intellectual property with financial support.

Since the costs of a trademark opposition are in the range of tens of thousands of dollars, we will need to find a way to refinance the legal costs of the opposition.

Please consider donating to the Python Software Foundation at:

    http://www.python.org/psf/donations/

or get in touch with me directly.

This is the first time the PSF has to take legal action to protect Python's intellectual property. Please do consider helping the PSF in any way you can. The threat is real and can potentially harm your business in Europe, especially if you are in the web hosting business and provide Python as part of your hosting plans.

---

Please let me know if there are any questions that I can answer. If you know someone who might have this information, please feel free to forward this. 

Thanks, 

Van Lindberg, Chairman
van@python.org
Python Software Foundation


[1] Class 9 - Computer software; Servers for web hosting; VPN [virtual private network] hardware; Internet servers; Internet servers.

[2] Class 42 - Design and development of computer hardware and software; Website hosting services; Hosting computer sites [websites]; Hosting the websites of others; Hosting of websites; Hosting the web sites of others on a computer server for a global computer network; Hosting websites on the Internet; Hosting the web sites of others; Web hosting services; Hosting of digital content, namely, on-line journals and blogs; Application service provider [ASP], namely, hosting computer software applications of others; Website hosting services; Hosting of digital content on the internet; Hosting of web sites; Hosting web sites; Hosting web sites for others; Hosting websites of others; Hosting of internet sites; Hosting the computer sites (web sites) of others; Web site hosting services; Hosting computer sites [web sites]; Hosting web sites of others; Rental of web servers; Servers (rental of web-); Servers (Rental of Web -).

"Software Wars" the movie - featuring Python!

As the Software Wars indiegogo campaign comes to a close in the last 40 hours, did you know Python plays a role in the movie? Creator Keith Curtis wrote to us to mention that William Stein, creator of Sage, is interviewed and endorses Python's use for teaching mathematics to children. There are also plans to interview others in the community, perhaps some of the children making use of Python.

The creators greatly appreciate your contributions to make Software Wars possible!