PSF Board Year in Review: Thought Provoking
This is the 2023 series of my year-in-review on the board. I just finished my second year if you are reading this, you might want to check my previous blog after detailing my first year-in-review.
I am still grateful for the support and trust from the Community for these years and encourage you to vote in this coming election, a lot is at stake, this coming board has so much to look into.
At the start of last year, I took a semi-leave on active duties, i.e monthly meetings on the board and only focused on discussions I felt were priority to me.
Which means I was still active, I just reduced my focus, for more about what I was working on see, see our board reports, but below is a summary:
- Coordinating organization activities for the inaugural PyCon Uganda
- Helping Pyladies Kampala activities
- Speaking engagements limited, just one in this period, at the Python language summit during PyCon US 2023 on native profiling
- Doing research, checkout some of my previous and upcoming papers on garbage collection for Python
- Engaged in several critical discussions we have had, those I vividly remember taking a lot of my effort include: 1) realistic vaccination mandates for Pycon US: because without much consideration we would over do it, and even hinder locals from attending, in the end we had very strong mask mandates and vaccination verification that worked perfect. 2) PSF policies to communities with conservative laws: we needed to be cautious to not overstep local laws for communities, because this makes community organizers susceptible to criminal activities 3) legal matters: basically a board that will exclude a legal counsel in the future wont be healthy. 4) conflict of interest for PSF staff and directors during elections: there is power we get by being staff and board members, maybe let us be neutral in the election.
Key Highlights
I will give the major highlights towards my three stated goals in my original nomination statement. There are several tasks on the board but I think I also stay true to what I initially planned to achieve.
The Ambassador Program
I have focused on not thinking about the ambassador program after PyCon US 2023. I have talked about how this is the flagship for outreach to places un-reached by the PSF. As you know, you require the whole board being onboard to get most of these things done.
I resurfaced the discussion this year, and the board during PyCon US decided to instead focus on a new community leadership council that may run the ambassador program too. The discussions are still early and nothing is set in stone yet.
As promised, I wont engage in any more negotiations for the ambassador program, I have advocated for improving its accountability and transparency since 2017 and now, I feel that my energy is exhausted. This is enough time of probing, if anyone is interested, they will build on the work.
Research activities and PyCon US
I have started to engage if we can complement the poster session at Pycon US with an actual research workshop at PyCon US 2024. This will be at the mercy of Olivia Sauls to accommodate something like this.
Education
The executive director communicated some outreach activities in this area during the members lunch at PyCon US 2023 which I think are a good direction, so I am happy to work together with her on this.
My Thoughts on Recent PSF Developments
We have seen a great deal of things happening at the PSF, new developer-in-residence programs, PyPI support improving and PyCon not being our main source of revenue, all things are looking up to be honest.
This last year also came with some changes on long serving staff like Jackie pursuing other opportunities. Also our legal council, Van, who had served the PSF for 17 years resigned. We are happy for them but we have to face the reality that we are losing decades long knowledge in a short time. We are mostly in control, with the current board chair, Thomas Wouters volunteering to keep in touch to help with this.
Looking ahead, in my view, based on what we have been through, we may have to be careful how we approach the following:
- Legal matters
- PSF policies
- Outreach
Legal Matters
If we are to be honest, Van is going to be hard to replace, but I have hope, the executive director, Deb Nicholson, has been instrumental in getting us options really quickly and we appreciate the efforts on that front.
We have to think of a person to replace Van with a seat on the board, which is critical and for any folks running this time, we really could use a lawyer, of course the due process should be ensured too.
In addition, we need to streamline a clear relationship with the new legal counsel with the board, according the legal counselor the right space and respect to advise the board productively, and clearly discerning when the board should take the counsel as one of; a directive, a suggestion or sensitive advise, otherwise, why are we hiring a legal person we don't care listening to.
PSF Policies
Communities that interact with us through PyPI, our grants program and even infrastructure support programs are core to PSF and the wider Python community. In the recent year, some discussions have come up raising the question on whether PSF is overstepping with certain mandates, case in point, I have followed discussions about PyPy and PyPI. Maybe it is a good time to carefully discuss at large the policies we have, to come to a middle ground on these current controversial discussions.
Outreach
From the PSF members lunch, we noticed, that some of our flagship programs like the grants program are barely making it to some areas like Africa and Asia. I think we have enough outreach programs for Python user groups, the ambassador program, showed us the potential.
Let us improve these already existing programs, straighten execution and improve transparency, otherwise, honestly, we will keep starting new programs and without any reflection, we will be moving in circles.
What is Next for Me
I wont start any new initiatives, we have many pressing discussions in the pipeline, seem enough for me. This coming year is likely my last year on the board, worst case, don't ask :)
I will attempt two things this year: 1) start the ambassador program working group and 2) Have some chats with folks on how to improve outreach activities to Python communities in Africa especially because that is where I am more familiar.
Action, Vote, in the coming election!
I am happy to discuss and talk about the coming PSF board elections, please email or DM me on twitter.
