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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