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Python Software Foundation gets a donor surge after rejecting federal grant
- add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago[flagged]
- themostunique 11mo agoThe wall and the egg phenomenon?
- bigbadfeline 11mo ago> Did both parties implicitly understand up until 2017 that going too hard too fast is counterproductive? Of course they did, as they do now, it's game politics 101, it's all in the game plan.
- colechristensen 11mo ago>Did both parties implicitly understand up until 2017 that going too hard too fast is counterproductive? Politicians know this, people don't necessarily.
- gm678 11mo agoI don't think this timeline is quite accurate - the 'transgender tipping point' Time magazine cover was in May 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_tipping_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_tipping_point
- nobodyandproud 11mo agoDisagree. 2014 was years before it became a mainstream cry to treat trans women as cis women. I didn’t really hear or notice this until the late 2010s. I also believe the trans community hurt itself and its own members by pushing this narrative/falling into this trap, though things like the bathroom bill made it inevitable? Perhaps it’s old fashioned, but what I believe is an acknowledgement and celebration of differences. What the new generation pushed is hiding those differences; by pretending there are none. It’s much harder to argue against “let’s all agree we’re all human and make this work”.
- userbinator 11mo agoIn the past no one cared about cis or trans because it didn't matter, but they found how it could be used for political leverage to divert attention away from more important things like the actual quality of work.
- caminante 11mo agoIt has been co-opted. I think this sub-thread (specific: trans) on Python Foundation's DEI (general) got supercharged with a claim that Hillary would've championed trans rights. To me, she was always very transactional and would've adopted "rainbow capitalism" approaches that optimize branding premiums with little substance. Meanwhile, trans rights have always been a favorite of marxists as an in-direct tool to attack capitalism (nuclear family, property rights, etc.)
- eefg 11mo agoWorse than that, they've been a favorite for men to attack women. It's the most sexist policy for a long time, harking back to an era of misogyny that should have long since been left behind.
- seethedeaduu 11mo agoIt mattered for trans people. In the 2010s there was a sort of emancipation for trans people, and you could see them more and more often being openly involved with open source software. It is only natrual to want to turn open source communities to be explicitly accepting.
- caminante 11mo agoThe subject is 2010s. Not convinced trans (especially trans women) weren't already over-represented prior as open source allows low barriers to join and anonymity on top of predominantly male (and trans women) + young.
- 11mo ago
- catlover76 11mo ago[dead]
- caminante 11mo agoWasn't aware of this term, but this timing (early-mid 2010s) seems right. This was around the time when civic orgs started pulling funding if you disallowed trans kids, and groups started spin-offs to (dis-)allow trans kids.
- jancsika 11mo agoI don't understand the implication of your first sentence. The NC Bathroom Bill passed in March 2016, and it had an immediate flurry of corporate backlash that lasted to the partial repeal in 2017. The bill was part of a growing amount of anti-trans rhetoric (and legislation) from the Republicans starting a few years before. But it was the first bathroom bill AFAICT. Are you saying that the Republicans would have been less likely to pass that bill under a Clinton presidency? If so, what's the extraordinary evidence for that? Alternatively, if you are saying they would have been more emboldened to pass it, are you suggesting that the backlash would have been smaller under a Clinton presidency? That's in the realm of possibility, but again what's the evidence here? Obama had already shifted to supporting gay marriage before the relevant Supreme Court case (probably due to Biden's gaffe of pre-emptively announcing his own support for it). So I just don't see why you would assume a Clinton presidency would effectively muzzle support for trans rights in this case, or have any effect whatsoever on the NC Bill and its aftermath. Edit: clarifications
- dragonwriter 11mo ago> It wasn't exactly the Streisand effect, but I remember thinking the whole flourishing of trans rights and acceptance between 2017 and 2021 never would have happened if Hillary had won. Is there a name for this phenomenon? 2017-2021 wasn't a flourishing of trans rights and acceptance, it was the big wave of active discrimination by, particularly, state-level Republican governments against previous progress in that dimension. That made the issue more visible, but specifically because it was the exact opposite of a flourishing of trans rights and acceptance. But, sure, it probably would have looked a bit different if there had been a federal administration likely to defend rather than abandon that progress (but it probably still would have happened.)
- add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago> 2017-2021 wasn't a flourishing of trans rights and acceptance, it was the big wave of active discrimination Right, I didn't make the point clearly enough, I meant that pushback and resistance to what you mentioned created more net sympathy and progress. My hypothesis is that the ugliness of the extremism turns off all but their base.
- chocalot 11mo agoYes, if the running government is seen to be anti-trans, it makes sense that trans supporters will show more support. Likewise for every topic that is under contest, including right wing topics. As an aside, I'd say calling it "the Streisand effect" could be seen to be hinting that if people just stopped support trans so strongly, there would be less backlash. That might be true, but given trans people have historically suffered abuse, it would be risky for trans supporters to let things settle and hope for the best.
- 5iqwzTa 11mo ago[flagged]
- ta9000 11mo ago[dead]
- abenga 11mo agoIt's not the source of the funds, it's that the government grant wanted to force a change of how the foundation does things, especially inclusion and outreach efforts.
- duskwuff 11mo agoImportantly: 1) The grant was for a specific, bounded project, but the anti-DEI terms would have applied to all activities of the Foundation, regardless of whether they were funded by the grant. (Which isn't to say that those terms would have been acceptable even for a single project, but having them apply to unrelated activities is even worse.) 2) The terms of the grant included a clawback clause - if, in the administration's eyes, the Foundation did anything to "advance or promote DEI", the grant would be rescinded, and the Foundation would be required to repay any money they had already spent. Given the size of the grant relative to the Foundation's budget, this was an unacceptable risk.
- buckle8017 11mo ago[flagged]
- viraptor 11mo agoNo. The specific point is "They do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination law".
- smolder 11mo agoThat rebranding of DEI is hilariously childish in an entertaining way, while deepening my loathing for the people behind it. I respect the choice to refuse those terms. Even organizations that aren't heavily focused on/invested in outreach and inclusion should refuse to accept those terms.
- mlindner 11mo agoYes that is what the equal protection clause is. Equity policies try to go beyond that by instituting "reverse racism" (which is really just racism) or any of a variety of other sort of policies that actively harm majority groups to try to force some kind of equitable representation.
- scuff3d 11mo agoI'm a straight white dude living in the United States. I'm as much part of the "majority" as one could possibly be, and this sentiment always confounds me. Never once in my 20+ years working for corporations and government contractors, including companies with very strong DEI programs, have I ever felt excluded or marginalized. And I've never witnessed "reverse racism" (which is a totally absurd name for what would just be racism). What I have experienced, several times, is people who look like me thinking I'm one of the boys, and flat out telling me they don't hire woman because they "cause too much drama", or only hire women they want to have sex with. And those are just two examples of dozens. Thanksfully those situations have plummeted over the years. You flat out will not get an equitable work environment if you don't place a focus on it.
- MarsIronPI 11mo ago[flagged]
- viraptor 11mo agoIt's not just about transgender people. When you have a tech organisation and say "all our members are old white guys... maybe there's something that keeps others away from us? let's make sure there are no barriers", you're engaging in DEI. Remember when the government went anti-DEI crazy and started covering displays of influential women and people of colour at places like NSA? That kind of decision maker may be handling the PSF's grant.
- shayway 11mo agoWould everyone agree with that definition, though? It seems like discussions around DEI tend to go in circles, because proponents see bad implementations as not really DEI, and opponents see good implementations as not really DEI either. I recently read in the local news that some city department, in order to comply with anti-DEI stuff, was changing its name to remove the word 'diversity'... and nothing else. DEI has no legal definition. It feels like the new "woke", where the actual meaning is irrelevant, and its only real purpose is tribalistic social signalling.
- Shawnj2 11mo agoBy accepting the grant they are giving themselves a legal responsibility to “not do DEI” where the government arbitrarily decides what DEI is. Even something like employing a trans software engineer or talking about the impact Python is having in POC communities could be considered reason to go after PSF legally or rescind the grant. It’s just not worth the risk for the reward.
- viraptor 11mo agoNaming things is hard. Yet we deal with lots of other vague concepts without losing our minds. There are some extreme voices, but somehow I've never heard anyone actually digging deeper into the issues to describe dei as just tribalistic signalling. When you strip out everything else, maybe that's a sign you lost all nuance? In development we'd just accept it as normal to say "Putting each literal value in its own module is not a reasonable application of modular design." without claiming that the name "modular design" is now misunderstood and irrelevant.
- OutOfHere 11mo ago[flagged]
- saubeidl 11mo agoWhen did "woke" - i.e. "awake and not closing ones eyes to the problems in the world" become some sort of slur ? What does it say about people that use it as such?
- OutOfHere 11mo agoThe problem is that they went too far. Over-correction is a thing. Instead of getting distracted by what is a slur and who is using it, focus on the meat of the matter, which is discrimination in all forms beyond merit. Anyone distracting from the core topic is a part of the problem.
- tomstockmail 11mo agoCan you list examples where the PSF has "gone too far?"
- OutOfHere 11mo agoTo espouse DEI already is going too far. Isn't this something they do? Don't they favor females instead of males? A better question is: why does Python even need the PSF staff? I am not convinced it does. The staff use donations to pay themselves salaries, to achieve what exactly that is so necessary? Do they even do any of the technical work?
- saubeidl 11mo ago> To espouse DEI already is going too far. That's a crazy thing to say without any evidence or reasoning. > Don't they favor females instead of males? Doesn't most of the world favor males? Why is that not an issue in your mind?
- 11mo ago
- mlindner 11mo agoI've been really sad to see Python's stance on this. It really shows that management is out of touch with reality.
- scuff3d 11mo agoGod forbid they stand up for people and fight for an inclusive work environment. How dare they!
- userbinator 11mo agoInclusive of idiocy? Software quality has been on a downhill trend that's steepened noticeably in the past ~15 years. Doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and see what's really happening but they'd rather we ignore the politically inconvenient elephant in the room. Your downvotes don't matter, we see the truth regardless.
- yoyohello13 11mo ago[flagged]
- userbinator 11mo agoThere have always even been black women developers, perhaps not as many as the DEI-brainwashed would like, but that's fine because they're actually competent regardless of who they are.
- yoyohello13 11mo agoThe narrative that DEI causes unqualified people to be hired is just false fear-mongering. I’ve been on several university hiring committees and the guidelines were always “if two candidates are equally qualified 1. Hire the veteran 2. Hire the minority” if a hiring committee chooses an unqualified individual to do a job that’s on them. No proponent of DEI I’ve ever talked to in real life has said we should hire unqualified people to meet some quota.
- commandersaki 11mo agoYeah, after what they did to Tim Peters in recent times, I don't see myself donating.
- SandmanDP 11mo agoCan you clarify what you’re referring to?
- jbarham 11mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41234180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41234180
- shadowgovt 11mo ago[flagged]
- zahlman 11mo agoCan you explain where Tim Peters did anything wrong?
- shadowgovt 11mo agoNot my job. You're welcome to draw your own conclusions from the public record as I have. The Foundation laid it out pretty clearly when they suspended him (https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-core-developer/60250 https://discuss.python.org/t/three-month-suspension-for-a-co...).
- zahlman 11mo ago> Not my job. You implicitly claim (in a snarky way) that the actions taken against Mr. Peters were justified. So yes, it absolutely is your job, if you intend for others to take you seriously (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=burden+of+proof+philosophy https://duckduckgo.com/?q=burden+of+proof+philosophy). > You're welcome to draw your own conclusions from the public record as I have. I have. They oppose yours. > The Foundation laid it out pretty clearly when they suspended him No, they absolutely did not. The claims made by the Code of Conduct Work Group did not stand up to even basic scrutiny. I have already cited that link repeatedly within the thread, and contrasted it with Mr. Peters' analysis (https://tim-one.github.io/psf/crimes.html https://tim-one.github.io/psf/crimes.html). To take just one example, as an objective matter of fact, not only did he not "use" the "potentially offensive language or slurs" referred to, he did not even write them out. (Also, I disagree that the word in question is a "slur".) He also as an objective matter of fact did not claim that the skit was funny, but rather that SNL generally was funny in that time period. And even that claim had a clear ironic meaning; the underlying point was that social norms change over time, which was relevant to the discussion. There is simply no way that any reasonable person who is paying attention could come to the conclusion that this was somehow endorsing the use of such language. The only reasonable underlying logic I can fathom for the objection is "when discussing an incident where someone used a naughty word, thou shalt not provide information that might assist the reader in figuring out what word it was". But I can't fathom a good moral reason for that, nor can I fathom a reading of the Code of Conduct which actually supports that. I can make similar arguments about every single point on the list. The findings were utterly absurd, and the action unjust. For that matter, in private discussion (as well as from some of what is said on the above-linked site) I have determined that Mr. Peters is in fact far more sympathetic to the social views of the Code of Conduct Work Group than I am. (I consider a large part of their expressed worldview to be frankly unjust and bigoted.)
- yoyohello13 11mo ago[flagged]
- jameslk 11mo agoThe government shouldn’t be spending itself further into unsustainable debt. And state funding of private organizations will always be subject to the politics of the state, leaking those policies into the organizations they fund. Avoiding both is a net win for everyone, so this is a great outcome.
- hmmokidk 11mo agoMore money to give to Tesla
- rbanffy 11mo agoAnd Palantir!
- acdha 11mo agoFunding supply chain security for one of the most popular open source ecosystems in the world isn’t even a rounding error on the budget. The debt increases are a political choice: the budget was balanced at the turn of the century, which was used as the pretext for cutting taxes to a level which ensured the problems we’re seeing now based on highly unrealistic growth projections. Cutting all funding on open source, or science, or foreign aid, or even all of those combined is a drop in the bucket compared to our cost of healthcare being whole multiples higher than in our peer countries.
- jameslk 11mo agoAnd yet, this organization found a way to grow its funding base by avoiding government handouts. It’s a net win
- woodruffw 11mo agoI think you’ve badly misread the numbers here: donors have only covered a small fraction of what this NSF grant would have covered. (And of course, it should go without saying that relying on the public to react to the government’s capricious behavior does not make for a stable funding situation for a nonprofit.)
- woodruffw 11mo agoMany of the comments here are disappointing. Regardless of your opinion of the PSF or its leadership, you should be opposed to this kind of clawback threat because it nakedly represents an attempt to place a non-profit in a double bind: even attempting to comply with these requirements would allow a politicized IRA to claim that the PSF is failing to uphold its stated mission.
- jameslk 11mo agoOrganizations should avoid funding by the government whenever possible. It creates incentives for the organization to align with the politics of the government. I am all for this outcome, as it’s a net win for PSF and any organization that can fund itself
- woodruffw 11mo agoRegardless of how you feel about the nature of government funding, you should be able to cogitate a strong argument for the U.S. government not playing “gotcha” games with its funding.
- jameslk 11mo agoYes, outcomes like these are the best way to avoid dependency on a central authority. I’m more for moving away from the ability of such authorities to exercise such power, rather than hoping they don’t abuse it. They certainly will eventually
- JuniperMesos 11mo agoThe problem is that the population of the US is itself polarized, and different factions want the government to be doing extremely different things with its funds. If faction A has successfully gotten the US federal government to fund something for a long time, and faction B hates that thing, campaigns on ending the funding, and then does end it once they win an election and take power - then a demand for the US to not play gotcha games with its funding is isomorphic to a demand from political faction A to keep some of their preferred policies in place even though they are not currently in a position of electoral power.
- rullera 11mo agoI wonder is this something all grants have now? edit: yep that seems to be the case https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/gc1-may25.pdf https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/gc1-may25.pdf
- trostaft 11mo ago:\ just finished applying for an NSF grant. I've got to look into other sources of funding.
- m-hodges 11mo ago[flagged]
- insane_dreamer 11mo agoIf people don't stand up to this sort of gov behavior, it emboldens them to take it to the next level and make even more demands, as universities are discovering.
- UltraSane 11mo agoCulture wars are intentionally engineered by the rich to distract everyone else from forming class solidarity against them. And it is amazingly effective.
- dcgudeman 11mo agoNo, people actually disagree about cultural changes. Not sure what kind of world model you must have in order to believe that ANY society wouldn't suffer from "culture wars" as it evolves. I suppose you believe that the entire prohibition episode in US history was also orchestrated by "the rich"?
- dontlaugh 11mo agoStruggling over cultural changes is a real phenomenon and sometimes even worth engaging in. But ultimately, ideas are secondary to matter. Most people on this planet work for the profits of a very small group. If they weren’t divided, they could easily defeat that small group and organise society for the benefit of the majority. As Warren Buffet said, class warfare is happening and his class is winning. We should all internalise that and engage in class struggle.
- unsignednoop 11mo ago[dead]
- bgwalter 11mo agoNot if all the culture wars in 2020-2024 received $billions of funding by the same companies who now support Trump. There is nothing organic about this, and organizations like the PSF play their role by never veering into economic and class warfare territory.
- LexiMax 11mo agoI mean...this thread joins the dozens of others in recent memory that has turned into a war-zone, filled with disposable throwaway accounts and bad faith downvoting that will almost certainly go unpunished. Considering the kind of money behind YCombinator, they're not exactly beating the rap.
- hereme888 11mo agoAll they had to do, was say "yes, we'll take the DEI sign down, and reiterate that we accept and support everyone and don't discriminate." Heck they could have made their website background a flaming, dynamic, neon rainbow for all the government cared. A $1.5MM ideological mistake.
- insane_dreamer 11mo agothat wasn't the issue, this was the issue: > This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole. Further, violation of this term gave the NSF the right to “claw back” previously approved and transferred funds. This would create a situation where money we’d already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk. This Admin has shown that it's willing to do/say what it wants; there is nothing to stop it from accusing PSF, without having to provide evidence, that it had violated the terms, and then take the money back. It's a risk they were right not to take.
- hereme888 11mo agoI dug a bit more and see that PSF is so DEI oriented at the core, that it would have affected the way they literally operated: PyLadies, PyCon US diversity work, and active outreaches and other activities/groups for DEI. I also see that DEI is literally part of their foundational mission, and the other happens to be developing Python.
- LexiMax 11mo agoI find it difficult to argue with its success. Python underwent one of the most poorly conceived backwards incompatible version updates of any language. I believe that it did irreparable damage to Python's position as an application making or web stack language. Yet today, it is still one of the most popular languages out there. I believe you can place this popularity at the feet of its outreach programs, which parlaid into being able to find new niches which it is currently thriving in.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- 3oil3 11mo agoImmediatly though of donating > $1.5M to remove that indentation hell. What do you mean it's in their values? More seriously, I can only respect someone (natural or legal) who refuses 7 figures for their values, which ever those might be and whether I share them or not.
- bgwalter 11mo agoMany people here have pointed out in response to flagged comments that the decision was legalistic, bureaucratic and self-preserving. I.e., the PSF did not want to enter a territory where it might be forced to repay the grant. The money was earmarked for PyPI and the refusal did not impact those who have other positions in the PSF. In 2020, when it was politically safe, the PSF made several BLM support statements. There are no statements about people of color in Gaza or extrajudicial killings off the Venezuelan coast in 2025. Moreover, they got political capital from this action for an organization that was/is severely damaged by the ruthless and libelous leadership. And they prepare for another pendulum swing that might materialize in the 2026 midterms. All in all, I'm unimpressed.
- insane_dreamer 11mo agoThere are two huge problems with these highly intrusive grant requirements that are different than previous Admin's DEI statements (which people sometimes point to, in a "what about ..."): - they apply to _all_ of the org's activities, whereas previous statements only applied to the grant itself (it had to be used in X way) ; this is what PSF found untenable - the gov can claw back the money if they deem you were violating the reqs pretty much as their discretion; while this might seem unlikely, the Trump admin is highly aggressive towards universities, withholding funding in a way that has not been done before under a bogus excuse of anti-semitism. It shows they will have their way and there's nothing you will be able to do about it.
- rbanffy 11mo ago[flagged]