Attendance

David Goodger, Brantley Harris, Greg Lindstrom, Ivan Krstic, Carl Karsten, Noah Kantrowitz, Ted Pollari, Chris McAvoy, Steven Githens, Skip Montanaro, Catherine Devlin, Facundo Batista, Doug Napoleone

Food Logistics

Pre-meeting, there was some discussion of past food logistics. T. Pollari confirmed that CTE (the meeting planners) will do the negotiations with the hotel.

Staff Roles

D.Goodger: "If anybody hasn't signed up yet, and intends to, please do. If you don't intend to, please rethink. If you know anybody who can, please bug them. ... Multiple roles are fine."

T.Pollari: "What goes into the financial aid coordinator position? ... I may be able to take that on." D. Goodger did this last time; he has some notes and will get them onto the web.

I.Krstic will sign up for the Program Committee Chair role.

C.Devlin will send staff-recruiting mail to last year's speakers.

N.Kantrowitz: "Should we just sign up based on interest and assume that information about what to do will appear later?" D. Goodger: "yes ... bug me or past holders for info, and the pycon-organizers list."

V.Lindberg: "What does the sponsorship coordinator do?" D. Goodger: "Send out mailings to get sponsors to give us $. There's even software behind it." C. Devlin: "Recruit corporate sponsors. Steve Holden has done it last N years." Lindberg will take on this role.

C.McAvoy will sign for Volunteer Coordinator.

N.Kantrowitz expressed interest in keynote coordination. Details To be discussed.

C.Karsten will be A/V Coordinator.

"Stepping on toes" was discussed. It isn't an issue: we have tough toes.

Keynote Speakers

Keynotes can be up to 90 minutes. In past years, we had 90-minute plenary sessions each morning, with a keynote speaker, plus Guido van Rossum at lunch one day (Saturday). Each day ended with a plenary lightning talks session, and one lunch (Friday) was for sponsor lightning talks. Unless we change things, we'll need 3 or 4 keynote speakers. Goodger: "One keynote at lunch, no more; lunch is too busy & noisy I think. It's good for lightning talks though."

2007 schedule: http://us.pycon.org/apps07/schedule/

Keynotes should be aimed at a different level from talks -- more general interest, less technical.

Goodger: "We need ideas for keynote speakers. We need to get people signed up as early as possible."

Keynote speaker suggestions:

• Guido van Rossum (to be confirmed). F. Batista: "Guido's talk about Python's status and future is always appreciated."
• V.Lindberg is willing to do a keynote on "IP and Open Source". Goodger: "Van did an abbreviated talk (prior person ran long) at 2007 which was very cool, and could be turned into a much longer one."
• Adrian Holovaty of Django (suggested by C. McAvoy): a chicago resident, has lots of ideas about the future of news publishing. He's a dynamic speaker as well.
• Peter Norvig, AI researcher, Director of Google Research, former Director of search quality at Google (V. Lindberg). Article in Technology Review. Python Infrequently Answered Questions. I. Krstic: "wicked smart, huge authority in the ai field. A big python fan." Lindberg: "Wrote the book on AI (using LISP), now prefers Python for a lot of work."
• Alex Maartelli (G. Lindstrom)
• Mark Hammond, who is working on XPCOM (Goodger: "he was unready for 2007, but said he'd be interested in 2008")
• V.Lindberg suggested a talk on "parallel processing with Python". (There was a talk by someone at ILM? Imageworks, says N. Kantrowitz.)
• Herb Sutter. I. Krstic: "... might be a good choice for concurrency, btw. He's been giving oodles of keynotes about "the concurrency revolution", see gotw.ca."

C.McAvoy asked if we would have a theme again, like education in 2007. Goodger: "It's wide open right now. If the keynote coordinator (and program committee) decide to do it, that would be fine. It would be good to advertise a theme, if we have one."

Goodger: "I'm wary about having too narrow a theme; some of us don't do web apps (like me)." N. Kantrowitz: "I think that a good mix of big talks (either keynotes or just highly anticipated regular talks) is probably a better way to go." B. Harris: "maybe the best idea is to see who you can get and then fit a theme onto that if it's possible." Goodger: "yes, availability is the biggest issue. Since we're not paying big $$, beggars can't be choosers."

Theme suggestions:

• B.Harris suggested "The Web". "It's a big topic at this point, the only issue is that people might be tired of it." N. Kantrowitz further suggested talking to the Tabblo people.
• I.Krstic suggested "Concurrency". "A lot of people wanted to hear more about twisted this year, and there are lots of different approaches to be heard."
• Lindberg: perhaps "Coding Smart": With Norvig (algorithms), concurrency, web stuff? It could be widely applicable. Goodger: "good theme for now, yes."

Harris: "I'm looking at this from a marketing perspective, and if you can advertise some hot topic as a theme, it's a big mind-share grab." Goodger: "It can be, yes, but it could also turn some people away so we have to be careful." Krstic: "let's not get hung up on the theme business; if a theme arises naturally out of the people who we want to have speak, that's great." Agreement ensued.

G.Lindstrom asked if there is money for speakers. Goodger: "we can cover hotel and maybe even travel" (for keynote speakers). "We're poor, so if they can cover it themselves (or their work can) it would be cool."

McAvoy: "I liked that there were some non-python talks last year, which is sort of odd, but I liked it." Goodger: "non-Python keynotes are good for the mix, especially with controversial/provocative speakers & subjects."

Goodger asked everyone to contact the people they proposed, and coordinate with Noah Kantrowitz.

Chicago Visit

Goodger:

I'm going to OSCON, visiting Chicago on the way. Arriving Friday [2007-07-20] for lunch & tour of the hotel. I'm taking a Segway tour Saturday AM, then free for lunch & dinner, so if anyone wants to meet, I'm available. I'll post details to the chipy list & pycon-org this PM.

C.Karsten will also be at the Friday lunch meeting. Larry Skaja of CTE (meeting planner) should be there also. Others are welcome.

PyCon Tech

2007 PyCon Tech page: http://us.pycon.org/TX2007/PyConTech

Goodger: "I have a wish list / laundry list of issues related to pycon tech that I'll put on the wiki. The main issue for me is the core infrastructure: 2006/7 was Zope-based, and nobody but Jeff knew how it worked."

D.Napoleone:

My plans are to make a call for volunteers with work to be done when I get back from Montanna, some time after Aug 5th. Before then I would like to have a wiki and bugtrack system of some sort in place. I would like a list of deadlines from the organizer body as a whole so I can get my timeline finalized, e.g. when to accept proposals, etc.

Napoleone: "There is an open question on where things will be hosted." Kantrowitz: "Consider the Trac offer as permanently open." Krstic: "I'm happy to provide hosting, etc."

Goodger: "I'd like to see the PyCon site look like a variant of python.org. Clean, simple, accessible." Napoleone: "Are we looking for a new host for the pycon web site? or just a new skin/base?"

Napoleone: "I would like to see the PyCon US web site as seperate from the Tech project site."

Harris: "I can offer my services, mostly I work with Django, and with graphic design."

Those who wish to help should join the pycon-tech mailing list (http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-tech) and send their SSH public key to <doug.napoleone@gmail.com>.

N.Kantrowitz will set up Trac (on pycon.coderanger.net?).

Goodger: "Everyone should feel free to use the PyCon blog (http://pycon.blogspot.com/); you just need a Google account."

Action Items

• D.Goodger will post his financial aid notes on the web.
• C.Devlin will send staff-recruiting mail to last year's speakers.
• Keynote speaker proposers will contact the proposees (see Keynote Speakers above).
• D.Goodger will post his PyCon Tech notes on the wiki.
• N.Kantrowitz will set up Trac on pycon.coderanger.net.
• D.Goodger will prepare a PyCon organizers' schedule.