23 ms·
An Open Letter to the Python Software Foundation
- sylware 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anewhnaccount2 3y agoStonewalling, delaying and simply not responding can be so much worse when they play out in real situations than people might imagine. You can waste a lot of the other person's time this way. We might hear a lot of justifications like "whoops" or "volunteers!" but the supposed deniability of such tactics is part of what makes them so exasperating and emotionally draining to deal with. I will withhold a final judgement until hearing the other side but it really looks like the PSF has a lot to answer for here.
- remram 3y agoDid they "not respond" though? Or just needed time to make the decision? The amount of comments both ways in this thread can at least attest to the difficulty of this decision. Can we really fault them for deferring it, provided they informed of that fact?
- Takennickname 3y agoIt's a grant, not an entitlement.
- gwd 3y agoThen say "no" quickly so that they can look for other funding. [EDIT] And be honest about the fact that Africans (or more charitably, countries that have particular laws or a particular pattern of enforcement) Need Not Apply.
- bruce343434 3y ago>And be honest about the fact that Africans Need Not Apply I have the hunch that that is what it came down to, a matter of public perception. Shunt africa, or shunt lgbt? Both "important minority identities" in the current zeitgeist of the western world. Probably no one wanted to touch that decision with a 10 ft pole.
- jsmeaton 3y agoThe open letter states it was a single individual that was able to stonewall the process. It wasn’t about the PSF group as a whole that didn’t want to touch the decision. One person. I think the letter has a fairly good point that processes are broken if this is possible.
- ttyprintk 3y agoI have to guess that, based on the meeting minutes posted nearby, the one vote needed to reach 5/10 vote is what this is referring to. The minutes explain a high number of abstentions. The chair of the PSF board was one of the Zanzibar organizers, for example.
- cobertos 3y agoIt doesn't seem like it was so simple as the open letter puts it? From the boards blog post https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2023/10/september-october-board-votes.html https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2023/10/september-october-board... The first vote had 6 abstentions and 4 yes votes. The second vote had 10 yes votes and 1 abstention. It seemed there was enough outstanding information/questions for 6 total people to abstain, though perhaps 1 of those 6 was using it nefariously? Hard to say
- layer8 3y agoHow many LGBT Python developers would actually feel shunted by the PSF sponsoring a conference in Zanzibar?
- danpalmer 3y agoIt's also done with the aim of helping put on an effective event and supporting the community, if the grant status is unknown until weeks before, that goal is severely undermined. I doubt the authors of this would have had a problem with being rejected 3 months before the event, at least that would be some certainty and they could cancel or seek alternative funding.
- dilawar 3y agoTrue but I'd have appreciated if they said no to the grant earlier. I hope Python Africa has learnt it lesson and will find ways to manage resources locally. That the only way to succeed in long run.
- anewhnaccount2 3y agoSo PSF is not a global organisation. Africa need not apply is a pretty bad look.
- mdew 3y agoThen when you tell Westerners that Africans are trying to "develop their continent" themselves, but they face various kinds of hurdles towards this objective, they will only dismiss it and say it's just that they are incapable of developing anything...
- paganel 3y agoSo what's the PSF for, then? Looks like supporting the spread of Python the language in geographical spaces like Africa should be at the top of their priorities list, at least by looking at current demographic trends, and not to invest in another boring Python conference held in Nowhere, OH, or in Neinpinkelsburg, Northern Rhenanina.
- ttyprintk 3y ago> to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers. A lot of comments are related to whether an alternative pan-African PSF would define diversity differently. If so, then a Eurocentric PSF might prefer conferences elsewhere.
- ayhanfuat 3y ago> What counts as “safety”? Which places in the world are truly safe for LGBTQIA+ community? How much of a city, or state, or country needs to be LGBTQIA+ hostile for the whole of it to be declared unworthy of PSF support? What a cheap shot. You don't need a safetyometer or something to determine that a country where same sex relationship is punishable by life imprisonment is unsafe for homosexuals or bisexuals.
- raverbashing 3y agoCorrect. They kinda said the quiet part out loud there At the same time, heck, the issue of 'regular safety' should not be downplayed. Yes, some places in the west are worrying as well, but not usually at the same level. (And yes at a certain point I wouldn't advocate for a conference "anywhere" in SF without a certain risk management)
- KeplerBoy 3y agoPerfect is the enemy of good. You probably can't have a perfect convention under these circumstances, but having a convention at all can improve the situation in the long term. Helping the local coding community will, sooner or later, provide them with additional income and knowledge.
- anonylizard 3y ago[flagged]
- plufz 3y agoWould they come after you if you brought your same sex partner? If you had a rainbow pin? Does it really matter where the exact limit goes? Would you feel safe being in a country where your sexuality was illegal? No way I would take that chance for a python conference.
- DeathArrow 3y ago[flagged]
- andrewstuart 3y agoWhy do “open letters” get so much more respect and attention than an ordinary whining email? The headline “A whining email to <organization>” would be ignored. Change it to “open letter” and it’s instant gravitas. Seems to be the same sort of magic words as ”considered harmful”……. instantly credible and worthy of consideration. I really should frame all of my grumbles about the state of the world as “open letters” so people pay attention.
- mirekrusin 3y agoOpen letter to open letters.
- bogtog 3y agoTo get people to take you even more seriously, hammer some number of theses on an organization's door.
- pilaf 3y agoOpen letters considered harmful?
- latexr 3y agoThat is confirmation bias. You only know of the successful open letters and are ignoring all the ones which were not. Search this very website for the term and sort by popularity, then start from the last page. See how many you ever even knew existed. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=open%20letter&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=ope...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoYep, I can call a press conference tomorrow and the attendance will be binary.
- paganel 3y agoBecause putting "whining" in the title of such a genuine request would entrench the people ignoring it in the first place, they'll just say "these are not serious people! We were right in ignoring the request! Who in his/her right mind puts 'whining' in the title of a petition?". As such, calling it an "open letter" might have bigger chances of success, even though (and judging by the responses of many of the people here), I don't think that those chances are that big to begin with. Either way, shameful conduct by the PSF, I used to look up to them ~20 years ago when I started learning Python.
- dna_polymerase 3y ago[flagged]
- jwestbury 3y agoA non-profit foundation generally exists to do more than just write code.
- hd4 3y ago> We know that there are some extraordinary attitudes at work within the PSF. A PSF Board member once openly expressed the opinion that Anglo cultures always seem to be the ones that take the moral lead around the world, leaving others to follow their example. From any non-western perspective, this is an astounding idea to receive. > That’s not a solitary episode. We understand that (notwithstanding the PSF’s ambition to support Python in Africa) a PSF Director has consistently spoken out against funding for African events, over a period of years. Okay we need names.
- odiroot 3y agoPSF would gain a lot from getting acquainted with Kipling's The White Man's Burden.
- ttyprintk 3y agoIt’d be a mixed message, since the Philippines is high value for international conferences and outreach.
- flumpcakes 3y ago> Anglo cultures always seem to be the ones that take the moral lead around the world, leaving others to follow their example This seems to be my lived experience, so I would say it's true. It would be interesting to see facts/figures on this. But then how to you quantify morality? The fact is, from an "Anglo culture" perspective we are leading with morality because we live in this culture so that's what we believe morality is, and it is the others' that have it wrong. Girls being executed for not following religious clothing, or female genital mutilation probably seem as the correct and moral thing to do within those cultures that practise it. I would like to think that objectively I personally find the Anglo set of morality the correct one as it maximises individual liberal freedoms and happiness for people. I don't think the 'west' should fund conferences in countries that have anti LGBT laws which would be considered hate crimes here. Taking that further, it means we shouldn't deal with Arab countries or some Asian countries. But we look pass our version of morality to do trade and commerce on a global scale. We sell weapons to dictators. Not an easy issue to think about or discuss from an objective viewpoint, if one can even exist.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y agoI wonder if part of the solution here is to request the grant and only start planning the event if the grant gets approved or denied? In any case, I would say the PSF should have a presumption towards supporting events in Africa, since their money will go farther there, and presumably will do more to nurture the nascent Python community in Africa (vs Python communities elsewhere in the world which are already well-established). Just my 2c
- hardlianotion 3y agoThe solution here is to be open about decision criteria and to make decisions in a timely basis. PSF would be acting in its own best interests to adopt a more professional approach to African community building - it’s not charity.
- DeathArrow 3y agoWell, why can't the local developers organize a conference without Python Software Foundation blessing?
- darkerside 3y agoThey can. They feel entitled to funding. Rightly or wrongly, I don't know.
- arp242 3y agoIn my reading I think they first and foremost felt entitled to a clear answer.
- darkerside 3y agoIME, I've learned to take an unclear answer as No.
- kabanda1 3y agoWe always have local python conferences in Africa without any outsiders financial contribution. The reason why they expected the contribution is because they are sort of official
- darkerside 3y agoBeing "sort of official" doesn't really seem like it should guarantee much of anything
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y agoThey could. Or they could just not organize a conference at all: >More than one of us confided in another that we wished we had never started the project. One way to think about this situation is that the PSF exists to promote Python. If their slow grantmaking process is giving organizers such a headache that they wish they just didn't organize Python events, the PSF is failing at its mission.
- jasoncartwright 3y agoPSF's meeting notes from the time https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2023/10/september-october-board-votes.html https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2023/10/september-october-board...
- darkerside 3y agoThis is probably a silly question, but why did they plan the conference and set a date before they knew they had funding? Wouldn't it make more sense to confirm the grant first, and then start planning the event? The letter comes off as pretty entitled. My guess is that while there may be some unconscious bias at play here, there is also probably groundwork that could have been better laid. Perhaps European organizers get a better response because they've been doing this for a while, know the PSF Board personally, and the event is a known quantity. On the flip side, if you want to make change and not just virtue signal, it's always better to engage. Organize a call, express your concerns, hear the organizers out, and find appropriate action to take. Of course, this process might not run on a timeline that is convenient to the organizers.
- hobofan 3y agoI wouldn't be surprised if there is a chicken-and-egg problem where the funding application also has to contain a planned date and venue. As it reads from the letter, it does seem like they handed in their application 3 months before the event. That seems like quite short notice and I would have expected ~6 months before the event, especially if there is no certainty/pre-commitment that the grant will go through.
- eithed 3y agoI think that they knew they had funding, so they started organising it without having money. Then transfer took longer than expected, so organisers had to shell out the money themselves
- JonAtkinson 3y agoSome thoughts on this from my perspective as a white, European, who was graciously invited to speak at DjangoCon Africa. I am not involved at all with the PSF, but my company has given the PSF money in the past. I think that I could sense the slight uncertainty about the conference, and the post above had made plain why. Considering what more could have been done if that uncertainty was resolved more quickly, the PSF’s procrastination (which is a generous interpretation, a less generous interpretation could be “tactical stonewalling”) is very disappointing. I generally supports PSF initiatives, I hope they will answer publicly and if necessary make commitments to improve their communications and processes. The PSF need to recognise the pent-up demand for support and financial aid outside of the Anglosphere. With good leadership they could make a huge contribution. I appreciate the difficult situation that the organisers are now in: it takes courage to call out poor behaviour. This doesn’t diminish the organisers or the event in any way: it was a huge success from my perspective as an attendee. DjangoCon Africa was the most invigorating conference experience I have had in years.
- jzb 3y agoWhat strikes me most about this is that, apparently by the timeline described in the open letter, the conference organizers planned the event with the expectation they'd get funding and asked for the funding fewer than five months before the event. That seems like extremely poor planning from my perspective. Maybe that's normal for events given money by PSF, I dunno, but "we've already decided to do this so hurry up and say yes now or it's your fault" doesn't seem entirely reasonable to me. It is, unfortunately, something I've run into time and again, with community driven events.
- pradn 3y agoI don’t see why it would take more than one PSF board meeting to approve funding for an event. Even if the board had questions, the follow-up is supposed to happen quickly. Several months to approve $9000 is silly. That’s probably just the catering budget for a 3-day, 200-person conference in the Bay Area - let alone for a conference for all of Africa’s Python community.
- logicchains 3y agoSay what you want about the language's complexity but this wouldn't have happened if it was a C++ conference.
- 3l3ktr4 3y agoCan you go on and be clearer with what you mean?
- arcza 3y agoWhat point are you trying to make?
- hobofan 3y agoThey were probably trying to allude to this[0] past controversy around C++ conferences (you can also google "c++ sex offender" and will find more sources around that). [0]: https://patricia.no/2022/03/08/cppcon.html https://patricia.no/2022/03/08/cppcon.html
- kabanda1 3y agoMy guess is that this has much to do with how much they get out of Africa. It seems like they don't see the benefit of funding those conferences. About LBGTQ This looks to me like the Western behaviour where they sanction the whole country to death because they don't agree with policies of people in power. I am an African. And I live in a country where such laws targeting LGBTQ has been enacted. FYI, Most people here have no idea what LGBTQ means and those who do don't give a damn. Those leading the making of laws and noise making are just populists after their bread. [These are facts, hoping they still matter] If you feel so strong about attending the conference, no one is going to ask your sexual orientation at the airport. Tourists are coming in everyday. Qatar has just hosted the world cup, how many LGBTQ people were jailed? If you don't feel safe, just skip the conference or attend online. You know very well that coders are among the most reserved people on earth, why punish them for their government rules? I hate posturing. I thought this kind of behaviour is to be left to politicians and 'national security' advisers. Will the world ever go back to reality?
- isodev 3y ago[flagged]
- kabanda1 3y agoIf a Muslim sympathetic to Palestinians go to Germany today, they will not declare it at the airport or in a coffee shop.
- mousetree 3y agoUnless that coffeeshop is in Sonnenallee
- johannes1234321 3y agoWhile stating it at either won't give you any serious trouble. Depending on where you state that, in what social situation, you might get all sorts of reactions, from antisemic support, to more nuanced support or rejection, but you won't lose your job, won't be injailed, aren't threatened by death penalty or any form of violence (while amount of violence against Jews, by some subcultures, is rising ...) And yes, political figures like Greta Thunberg are criticized for their statements. But a) it's a political statement by some political figure and b) there aren't threats but newspapers etc. dismissing the statements in articles. Which again is very different from the threats towards gays in different regions of the world.
- anonymous-cwrd 3y agoI'm shocked, although not surprised what a large fraction the comments here are racist in nature
- bloopernova 3y agoWhite supremacists target online discussions as a way to promote their bigoted hatred. Any time there's a thread that includes anything they consider might promote progressive values, a swarm of different hate groups and trolls arrive. They then try to steer the conversation towards their own delusional nonsense. Deeply frustrating but incredibly difficult to police. I have some small hope that AI will be able to combat some of the deluge of hate.
- culebron21 3y agoYou can't demand people in other places to McDonaldize their conference to the latest intellectual fashion of the costal United States. Demanding others to comply to your cultural standards (and denying cooperation otherwise), you actually strip yourself of the opportunity to spread them (cultural standards).
- bitcurious 3y agoGenuine question - why not? If (for the sake of argument) the money is raised in the coastal United States, why are they not entitled to disburse it conditional on respecting LGBTQ rights?
- culebron21 3y agoMy point is that sure, one can set this condition too, and be very strict about it. But this way they just close the ways to spread their culture. If Protestant churches were behaving this way, they'd still have stayed in North Europe exclusively, not send missionaries anywhere, and achieved nothing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dual_dingo 3y agoMaybe it's my experience from working in grant driven academia, but applying for a grant 4 months before you need the money and then complaining because it took three short months to get a decision is ridiculous. Applying later than a year in advance is too late.
- biorach 3y agoThis is not grant driven acedemia. This is the PSF, not encumbered with layers of beurocracy, audits and regulation. An expectation of a turn round time of a few weeks is entirely reasonable
- dual_dingo 3y agoApparently, the two decision making bodies in the PSF for this matter have once-a-month meetings. This means any problem or missing information or whatever will delay the process for at least a month. So, maybe not a year, but 6-9 months would be a comfortable timeframe. I stand by it: 4 months before the event is WAY too late, and even with a slim organization, 3 months to get a decision is an absolutely reasonable time.
- gangstead 3y agoAt Strange Loop this year during the keynote the organizer said he was usually signing the contract for the hosting venue 2 years in advance. I'm not saying a first year 200 person conference has to plan as far out as an established X,000 person conference, but 4 months out is cutting it close. I'd suspect all first year conferences are very chaotic as the organizers learn to go from 0 to 1 so good for them for pulling it off. It's time to start working on next year's conference and grant proposal.
- Beached 3y agothis was my first reaction. how fast they came to a consensus, it was the organizers fault for applying so late, it the boards fault for approving in only 3 months. 1 year prior to the con is more what I would expect.
- jtdev 3y ago[dead]
- TOMDM 3y ago> At a meeting earlier this year, the PSF expressed concern that barely 16% of grants go to African communities. The continent of Africa makes up 17.89% of the world's population (based on recent UN estimates), well within the margin of error of that 16% allocation I'd expect. Am I missing something? Are there country's that the PSF doesn't work with at all that would skew this?
- ttyprintk 3y agoYes, last year something like 1% went to Asia.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoI would expect that grants should skew towards where the need is greatest. Countries with more resources shouldn’t need grants as much.
- rossdavidh 3y agoI would think that the money would "go further", and the impact of getting the grant vs. not getting it would be greater, in most of Africa compared to, say, the Bay Area in California. Not the only basis for consideration, but one might think that the PSF should be prioritizing places where, if they give a grant, it makes a large positive impact on the outcome. I'm no expert, but it seems plausible that this might be more often the case in Africa than elsewhere.
- Atlas667 3y agoThis thread is pretty wild. It's interesting to see north-western racism and african homophobic laws exposed like this. I don't think it should have been an issue and PSF should have been clear about the reason behind their delay. Nobody intimately studies a countries law when sponsoring events in said country, they judge based on general knowledge and vibes, which is what makes this iffy and biased. Else most countries would be in the spotlight as nation states don't generally do whats good for their population, they instead obey "national interests" which in capitalist societies is the capitalist class' private profit enterprise.
- jlg23 3y agoI think the problem is also that a lot of committees are too detached from some of the groups they deal with. I once was invited, as a member of a European drug policy group, to a FSF conference in London with the aim to get more grassroots organisations to use FOSS - flights and hotels paid for by the FSF. When there, we were informed that we could later send our receipts for hotels and flights to the chair of FSF Europe to get reimbursed just a few weeks later. If not for some very generous attendants who lived in London, a lot of people would not have had a place to sleep; I personally paid for a few return flights so people were not stranded in the UK. First: grassroot activists usually don't have any sponsors or disposable income. Second: the takeaway message "use Linux, use Firefox" could have been sent instead of the invitations and people could have learned the same, spent that time on working for their cause and finally have saved themselves from a precarious situation. Third: The guy in charge spent much more gossipping about RMS at the paid for meals than on the announced content of the conference. Bad style, especially since some attendants just had spent much more productive time with RMS a few weeks before (and probably still tried hard to get the images of him clipping his toe nails during the meetup out of their head - at least I did).
- przemub 3y agoThat's interesting. I used to regularly donate to FSFE but their weird relationship with FSF prompted me to stop recently.
- test6554 3y agoOnce upon a time, we wanted something nice but couldn't afford it. Someone gave us money but we wanted the money faster so we complained and publicly shamed the people who gave it to us. The next time we asked for money they didn't help at all and we don't know why. The end.
- mmtml 3y ago[flagged]
- nomdep 3y ago"We started a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to help cover the cost of financial assistance. (...) the pleasure and gratitude we felt about that was overlaid with a feeling of humiliation that once again, a major African open-source software event had been obliged to publicly extend a begging-bowl" The entitlement! Dude, you are literally asking for money to the PSF and feel that a crowdfunding campaign is below you? No one is forcing to do a conference.
- whoknew1122 3y agoI'm with most of this. But then we get to: >In one recent example, voices on the PSF Board were demanding that a condition of funding for a particular PyCon be the formal adoption of a “human rights plan” - a measure that would pose a significant legal and personal risk to its organisers. > >The entitlement and assumption of cultural superiority embodied in these ideas are absurd and offensive. I can't track down what this 'human rights plan' requires. I also understand that Europeans (and Americans) need to be very careful when projecting cultural norms to other places. I'm not here for cultural colonialism. And there are some countries where supporting LGBTQIA+ rights (and others) is illegal. The PSF should be careful when it comes to trying to force organizers to take stances that would put organizers in legal jeopardy. But if you find it 'absurd' and 'offensive' to support human rights beliefs that are espoused by a funding body... don't take the damn money. People can disagree on what human rights exist, and how they should be enforced. I'm well within rights to ensure that funding I'm giving you is contingent on respecting the rights of the people I serve. Sorry, but there are some hard lines. And support of human rights is culturally superior than non-support of human rights. And if you don't like that, don't take the money.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- culebron21 3y ago> And if you don't like that, don't take the money. If christian missionaries had these attitudes, Protestants with their ethics would have still be just around the Northern Sea. (And I consider protestant church a carrier of protestant ethics, that Webber described.) Because, those peoples where they sent the missions, were not living to the rules of protestants -- some had no weddings and changed wifes over time, some probably did human sacrifice, or killed each other, or stole, etc. Missions taught people literacy and arithmetics. And also cared about the 10 commandments. Yet they sent and kept missions where people didn't adhere to those. Same should apply to human rights -- rather than stay away proudly, let others interact with you and let them absorb your moral standards. ============= If the above is too archaic/colonial, here's a current example: some Western universities, and the German Goethe Institut have their branches in Central Asian ex-USSR countries. All of them are wannabe-muslim, with 60+% of people considering themselves muslim. Open discussion about LGBTQ rights is a very thin ice -- it may lead if not legal consequences, but a very unpleasant mob, or demands to close the event, and bureacracy will silently follow these demands. One of the countries (Kyrgyzstan) has even an "underage gay propaganda" law, which makes any open discussion legally dangerous. I bet Goethe Institut management deeply cares about these rights. Should they close, or keep working, spreading their word and values in these countries? p.s. Maybe it's all just about not spoiling the PSF brand name, by putting it next to some state entity (which state violates some human rights), then PSF should be open about it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zlg_codes 3y agoI guess I shouldn't be surprised that projects surrounding historically privileged people would use it in ways to impact less fortunate or rich communities. This would be a great time for another language to swoop in and get good PR. Since Python doesn't appear to be a globally targeted language... There's politics in any organization but this story has me wondering what other communities get fucked by misleading messaging about funding. On top of that, the advice people give, "be more careful" admits that the people issuing grants were not timely or responsive and instead pretends the moral onus is on the victim. How very... Western.