CubaConf, Day 1

This is the second in a series of posts on my trip in April to Havana, Cuba to attend CubaConf, an International Conference on Free Software. 

Day one of CubaConf started out with a bit of confusion. A last minute change of venue was necessary due to some bureaucratic red tape surrounding the government controlled Palacio del Segundo Cabo. Luckily, a short walk across the Plaza de Armas, the Colegia San Geronimo was available and happy to step in to provide meeting rooms for the approximately 180 speakers and attendees. And in spite of the spotty internet service that plagues the island, difficulties in communicating the change did not prevent the conference from starting smoothly and nearly on schedule. The organizers, including Pablo Mestre, a member of the PSF-Cuba workgroup, deserve much credit for their smooth handling of the situation.



Preliminary announcements and welcoming remarks revealed that speakers and attendees came from 17 different countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Turkey, Uruguay, United States, and Venezuela. Sponsors, including the PSF, were mentioned and thanked. 

The keynote by Hamlet López García, a social psychologist from the Cuban Institute of Cultural Research at Juan Marinello, explored the relationship between free software and Cuba’s politics and culture. 

Hamlet López García

López' main thesis, (citing Richard Stallman), was that technologies develop as social processes and are shaped by cultural values. In this way, the general principles of the Cuban revolution can be seen to be in harmony with those of free software. The further adoption and use of free software, according to López, is leading to more democratic access to knowledge and opportunity, not just in Cuba, but globally. This opening talk was enthusiastically received and set a positive tone for the rest of the day.



Once the conference broke into three tracks, I attended a talk by Jacob Appelbaum on the TOR network and the importance of anonymity. Appelbaum explained the ways in which the TOR network was designed to ensure four types of freedom: it's decentralized, encrypted, distributed, and unlike other internet networks, meta-data free (i.e., it does not collect or aggregate meta-data).

Additional talks occurring on day one shared speakers' experiences using open source for projects such as collaborative mapping and creating an online payment system, as well as more theoretical topics such as web development and encryption. Former PSF Director, David Mertz, gave a talk on teaching Python to Data Scientists, a topic that he will reprise in Portland at PyCon's education summit at the end of this month. Talks were given in either English or Spanish, with simultaneous translation provided by one of several bilingual volunteers. 

Another talk worth singling out was a provocative talk by  Heather Marsh on the illusory nature of the power that users assume to derive from the internet. According to Marsh, such internet features as "thought bubbles" and "noise" pose obstacles to collaboration and to challenging the "Ponzi schemes of power." These ideas are more fully presented in Marsh's book, Binding Chaos.

At the end of the day, a tired, but excited crowd posed for a group photo before walking down the block to the conference dinner of Cuban food, mojitos, and beer.  (And by the way, beer costs about $1 per can/bottle--I almost didn't come home.)

CubaConf end of Day 1

Outside the Colegia San Geronimo

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

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The Election Process and the new PSF Election Administrator

Background: 

As those of you who have been following recent events in the PSF know, there were some difficulties and disagreements surrounding the election for the 2015-2016 Board of Directors. The initial attempt at an election for Board members was cancelled due ambiguity concerning candidate nomination deadlines. 

Then, as possible solutions were discussed on the PSF voting members list, it became apparent that there were additional aspects of the previously used system (E-vote) that were considered less than ideal by some members.

The Election Administrator at that time, due to newly undertaken professional commitments, was unavailable to relaunch the election or to modify the procedures to satisfy the desiderata expressed by many. Fortunately, Ian Cordasco agreed to step into the position, and he has been hard at work since the beginning of May getting the recently completed election back on track and exploring long term solutions to newly identified problems.

Already some important changes have been made: First of all, with the hard work of the Board of Directors and many volunteers, a precise and unambiguous deadline was set for nominations, for the issuing and for the receipt of ballots for both the Board election and the Sponsor election (See New Board Election.) That election has been successfully conducted and we have a new Board of Directors (and some new sponsors) as a result. (See Congratulations.)

Secondly, an Elections Working Group was formed to study the desirability of an enhancement to the E-vote software developed by Massimo DiPierro and David Mertz that had been used by the PSF for the past several years. An alternative solution, switching to another system like Helios, is also being explored. For those who wish to participate in this discussion and/or to contribute to this important evaluative study, please subscribe to  Elections-wg@python.org.

I recently had an email chat with Ian about his new role which I’d like to share with you:

Q: Why did you get involved?

Ian: There was a lot of conflict over the last Board Election. Unnecessary conflict is something I really don’t want to see in the Python community, so I stepped up to attempt to deescalate the situation.

Q: What is your background/interest as election administration?

Ian: I have no background in running elections. The software is intriguing to me. The way of verifying votes and ensuring anonymity is also intriguing.

Q: What are some of your goals as election administrator?

Ian: To run elections well and improve the software we use to run our elections.

Q: What are the criteria for a good election process?

Ian: This list is probably incomplete, but,

• 
  User friendly: The nomination process should be easy as should voting.
  
  


• 
  Transparent and Verifiable: Nominations and votes should be verifiable by any one observing the election.
  
  


• 
  Secure: It’s unlikely someone might try to attack a PSF election, but users should know that their votes aren’t being altered when casting them and that the ballot they received was correct.
  
  


• 
  Well documented: Voters and candidates should know the schedule. The software should be well documented for all involved - candidates, voters, and election administrators alike.
  
  


• 
  Cooperative: I have the great pleasure of coordinating with Ewa Jodlowska who helps in the election process. Massimo DiPierro and David Mertz have been very helpful in learning and navigating E-Vote.This whole process would have been a lot more stressful if not for their help and support.
  
  

Q: I understand that recent election yielded a tie in the number of votes for the eleventh Director’s seat. How was that resolved?

Ian: I spoke with David and in the past, ties have been broken with code such as:

if random.random() < 0.5:
    print('Candidate A')
else:
    print('Candidate B')

So in following with that, I ran that code and came up with the 11th… For some amount of verifiability, I recorded the run of that script.

Q: How can we (PSF members) help?

Ian: Join the Elections WG! We’re trying to improve the whole of the PSF elections process. There are a few known issues with the current process. Many hands make light work.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

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Congratulations to the new Board of Directors!

Board Election Results

The PSF annual Board members' election was just completed, with voting closed at end of day (AOE) on May 31, 2015. Thanks to all who took part, including candidates, PSF Directors, staff and volunteers, as well as all members who participated by voting in the election. A special thanks to Ian Cordasco who undertook the daunting task of administering this election at a point of upheaval and controversy last month.

The slate of candidates for the eleven Directors' seats was the strongest ever, with 23 people, each of whom brought a high level of skill and experience in tech and open source, and who collectively represented several countries, ethnicities, gender identities, and varied experiences. (Candidates' statements can be reviewed on the wiki.)

We are very excited and proud to see such strength and diversity in our new Board and extremely grateful and proud of the work of our outgoing Directors, who pushed very hard and intentionally toward opening the Board to this new diversity. 

Please join me in thanking the outgoing Board members:

Brian Curtin, Kushal Das, Selena Deckelmann, Jessica McKellar, David Mertz, and Travis Oliphant.

Congratulations to the new PSF Board of Directors:

Nick Coghlan, Diana Clarke, Van Lindberg, Lynn Root, Alex Gaynor, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Carol Willing, Naomi Ceder, Anna Ossowski, Carrie Anne Philbin, and Ashwini Oruganti.

There has been a lot of growth and discussion of new ideas in the past couple of months, in the halls at PyCon, on the membership lists, and over emails. It is time to put those ideas, along with a new optimism and a renewed commitment to the mission of the PSF, to work.  I believe that this moment is the beginning of a new stage in the PSF adventure and I look forward to working with the new Board and all of the membership!

In my next post, I will be writing about some of what we’ve learned during this election process and how we’re channelling this learning via the new Elections Work Group, and posting an interview with our new Elections Administrator.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

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New Board Election! Important! Please Read!

For those of you who haven't followed the recent discussion on the PSF members list, there has been an important development regarding the election of members to the Board of Directors. 



Due to ambiguity with respect to the candidate nomination deadline (the former election administrator interpreted the deadline as midnight May 1, UTC; while others were operating with the understanding that the deadline was midnight Anywhere on Earth), a candidate who wished to self-nominate was not able to.



The PSF Board moved quickly to respond to this issue and the following solution was adopted: 



Here's the official explanation by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Van Lindberg:



Due to some procedural problems with the current election for the Board of the Python Software Foundation, the Foundation has taken some steps to make sure that the elections are freely open for nominations and that there are no conflicts of interest. Specifically, today the board adopted the following resolutions:

RESOLVED, due to procedural deficiencies, the Board Election ballots issued on May 1st (AOE)/May 2nd (UTC) be deemed null and void.

RESOLVED, that David Mertz be removed as election administrator, and that Ian Cordasco be appointed as election administrator.

David has been the election adminstrator for quite a while, and designed the "e-vote" system that we use along with Massimo DePierro. He has put in a lot of time and effort, and we thank him for it. David in particular volunteered for a complex voting administration task that needed to be handled as the PSF expanded internationally beyond a primarily US-based membership that could previously realistically vote (in person, or by proxy) at physical meetings held annually at PyCon
US.

Without David's efforts as Election Administrator over that time, it would not have been feasible to expand the membership as we have, including the conversion to an open membership model in the 2014 update to the PSF bylaws.

For anyone who has received a ballot already, or has received a ballot reminder, please ignore it. We will be canceling the election as quickly as possible.

We also wanted to make sure that the procedure for upcoming board elections was clear, particularly with regard to the timelines for nominations and voting eligibility. To address that, we also adopted the following resolution concerning the timing of future votes for the board. For those who aren't familiar with the term "AOE", it means "Anywhere on Earth." 

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation adopt the follow procedure for Board elections:
    - Day 1: There is announcement of an upcoming board election via public announcement and email to existing voting members.
    - Day 10 (AOE): Nominations and voting eligibility closes for the upcoming board election. The list of voting members is updated.
    - Day 14-15: Ballots are sent out to voting members.
    - Day 25 (AOE): Election closes.

We also are starting a new election using this procedure, so the timeline for the election is as follows:

    - May 5: Announcement of a new election . . .  and an email to the voting members.
    - May 15 (AOE): Nominations and voting eligibility closes for the upcoming board election. The list of voting members is updated.
    - May 19-20: Ballots are sent out to voting members.
    - May 30 (AOE): Election closes.

This means that in an effort to be inclusive, the nominations will again be open for anyone until May 15 AOE. If you missed the opportunity to nominate for the 2015 Python Software Foundation Board, you will have that chance.

Thanks,

Van Lindberg
PSF Chair

I urge all prospective candidates to post their nomination statements in advance of the May 15 (midnight AoE*) deadline, and all voters to read the Wiki for the candidate statements and to cast their ballots in advance of the May 30 (midnight AoE*) deadline Wiki.



* AoE = UTC - 12



For those with more specific scientific requirements for deadline info, the following should be completely unambiguous:



Deadline for candidate nominations and voting rights self-certification: End of day May 15, 2015, AoE: = UTC May 16, by12 noon = ISO 8601: 2015-05-15T23:59:59-12



Deadline for Voting: End of day May 30, 2015, AoE = UTC May 31, by 12 noon = ISO 8601: 2015-05-31T23:59:59-12:00

Any questions or problems can be addressed to the Board (PSF-Board@python.org) and/or the new election administrator, Ian Cordasco (graffatcolmingov@gmail.com).

Photo Credit: M.A. Sushinsky, private collection 

(S. Dali multiple original lithograph--sketch for Persistence of Memory)

("Time is the horizon for the unfolding of the meaning of Being," 

-- M. Heidegger, 1927)

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

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Finding global voices

On the psf-members mailing list today, current Director David Mertz expressed some sentiments about increasing diversity in the governance of the foundation that I'd like to share.  Making the Python community, and the Python Software Foundation itself, more diverse, globally and across dimensions of privilege is something we have been striving for very consciously for years. Here's what he wrote (re-posted with his permission):

This year, as for the last bunch of years, I'll be the election administrator in the upcoming election. This will have some candidates for the Board of Directors of the PSF, and probably a few other issues like Sponsor Members approvals or membership resolutions.
    This year, as in past Board elections, I will use "approval voting" again. This will be explained again when you get ballots and announcements here. But the general idea is that each voter can cast as many Approve votes as they wish to for the 11 seats. A voter might vote for only the one candidate they really like to avoid diluting that vote. Or they might vote for every candidate except the one they really don't like as an "anyone but" vote. Or, in most cases, voters will vote for some number of candidates whom they feel generally comfortable with or prefer, and skip voting for any others.
    I give this preface to explain how I intend to vote. I am a white, male, middle-class, middle-aged, cis-gendered, American who has been on the Board for a long while. I may or may not run for it again (my name is on the wiki now with no candidate description, but mostly as a placeholder to get some permission issues sorted out for editing the wiki).
    But what I REALLY want is to have a PSF Board that is less American, less white, less male (and ideally represents diversity along other dimensions also: religious, sexual identities, linguistic, disability, etc). So I earnestly urge any or all PSF members, or their friends and colleagues, or other members of the Python community, or general supporters of Free Software, who might consider serving on the Board to place themselves in nomination, or allow themselves to be so placed.
    Serving on the Board is a genuine commitment of time and effort, and carries a fiduciary obligation. It's not just an item to put on a resume, and I don't want names of Directors from subaltern* groups there just as names alone. But I really do want those names as people who actively participate in making our community both more vigorous and more diverse.
    Which is to say, that for MY own vote, I can pledge to vote Approve to any candidate with a minimal indication of commitment to the selfless, volunteer tasks involved who doesn't look or sound quite so much like myself.
    Please, wonderful potential candidates, step up and let me cast these votes!

[*] In critical theory and postcolonialism, subaltern is the social group who are socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland. In describing "history told from below", the term subaltern derived from Antonio Gramsci's work on cultural hegemony, which identified the social groups who are excluded from a society's established structures for political representation, the means by which people have a voice in their society.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx. 

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Run for the Board of Directors!

The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.

It’s that time of year again! The PSF annual election for its 2015 Board of Directors is currently seeking candidates.

But what exactly, you may ask, does the PSF Board do? Well, it turns out that the fulfillment of the above-quoted mission statement requires that they do quite a bit.

Basically, the directors manage all the business of the PSF. This includes appointing the PSF’s officers; holding and protecting Python’s intellectual property rights and licenses (the open source stack of licenses on the source code, all logos and trademarks); managing the budget and allocating funds; organizing and managing the annual PyCon North America (through the esteemed PyCon team); maintaining the PSF's legal status as a non-profit corporation (with all appropriate legal documents, such as articles of incorporation, bylaws, etc.); managing and maintaining the python.org website and related resources; fundraising and obtaining sponsors; public relations; education and outreach; and membership management and services (and probably some other categories that I forgot).

There are 11 total seats available; Directors are elected annually for a term of one year. Directors need not be residents of the US, and they are not compensated for their work. See PSF ByLaws for more complete info.

If you or someone you know would like to run, i.e., do all of that extremely important work for free—although you will bask in glamor (glamour, if you’re British), glory, and gratitude, here’s the wiki for nominations: PSF Director Nominations.

At the moment, no deadlines have been set; I will provide that info as soon as it’s available.

Additional relevant info can be found at: PSF home page, PSF membership FAQ, and PSF members' wiki.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

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