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RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation award Armin Stross-Radschinski and Jan Ulrich Hasecke the 1st Qtr 2015 PSF Community Service Award for their work on creating the PSF Python Brochure. For the last several years, a dedicated team has toiled in obscurity on a task they knew to be important for the future of a programming language they loved, but at the same time, one that many thought would be a fool’s errand and would never pay off. These intrepid visionaries kept going, through thick and thin; through difficulties getting stories, legal permissions, and sponsors; through naysayers and those who said, again and again, that it was useless, since  winter is coming  (or something similar); through lions, and tigers and . . . ! Ultimately, they produced (drumroll, please) the PSF Brochure ! All kidding aside, the PSF brochure took an enormous amount of work and has been a huge success. It stands as a real-world ambassador for Python, for which we should all be grateful...

As many of you know, the use of Python in education has grown tremendously in the past several years (see PSF Newsblog ).  The  Python community celebrates this trend, and continues to strengthen our connections to the world of education. PyCon’s first education summit at PyCon 2013, initiated by Naomi Cedar (who was recently elected to the PSF Board of Directors ), has been followed globally by many Python conferences holding education tracks and getting involved with community teachers and education leaders. Recently PyCon UK  and  EuroPython   announced their upcoming education tracks. After attending the Education Summit at PyCon2015 in Montreal , I was inspired to read Nicholas Tollervey’s wonderful booklet,  Python in Education .  (MAS reading and learning) Here Tollervey summarizes and explains Python’s use in education, recounts the history of the Python programming language, provides a case study of the amazing  Raspberry Pi , and describ...

Like other community-based open source software, volunteers from around the world are to thank for Python's existence. When it comes to Python on Windows, the crew overseeing it are much smaller in number than those involved in other platforms, and one person in particular stands out among them with contributions that have helped shape Python's existence on Windows: Mark Hammond. Mark's efforts in supporting the Microsoft platform have been so influential that the CPython Windows installer contained a message thanking him in several versions in the 2.x series of releases. It is my pleasure to announce that Mark has been chosen to receive our Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to our community. Not only have Mark's efforts been seen within CPython itself, from the winreg and os modules to the PEP 397 "Python launcher for Windows" and other areas, but also outside of it through his creation and maintenance of the pywin32 package. That project h...

Last month, in addition to the election for the Board of Directors, a separate election was held asking PSF members to approve three new sponsors. Here is Ian Cordasco’s announcement of those results: … we had 198 voters out of 426 which is ~46.48% of the voting membership (at the time). The results are  here . In short, Intel and New Relic both were overwhelmingly approved. Pickaweb less so but they still received (of the ballots cast) 56% approval (111/198).  So, according to the bylaws (Section 4.6), all three sponsors were approved! Thanks to Ian and everyone who participated. And to the new sponsors, congratulations and welcome aboard! I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at  msushi@gnosis.cx .

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 som...

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 openi...