How to promote Python in the Federal government?

[Tim Churches]

On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 03:43, Stephen Ferg wrote:
> Currently, the level of Python-awareness in the Federal government (or
> at least at my agency in Washington DC) is extremely low.  Most
> programmers and managers aren't even aware of the existence of a
> programming language named "Python".  Most managers are barely aware
> of open-source software, and would never switch to open-source from
> Microsoft for fear of "lack of support"!  A few of our technical
> people are very enthusiastic about open-source -- but for most of
> them, "open-source" equates only to Linux, Apache, and Perl.
>
> I thought of trying to create a Federal Python Users Group (FedPy?). 
> The purpose of FedPy would be to raise awareness of Python and its
> capabilities among Federal agencies, and to (at least) provide a
> membership list that might help Federal Pythonistas (employees and
> contractors) to know about and communicate with each other.  But user
> groups don't seem to flourish here -- the local Python/Zope user group
> is moribund.
> 
> Any suggestions?

Why don't you attend the eGovOS confernece in Washington DC on March
17-19, 2003. Registration is free, I think. Many talks, but a quick scan
revealed the following which are certain to mention Python (there may be
others):
  
Aron Trauring, Zoteca, Python, Twisted and EAI [Abstract]

Robert Page, Zope Corporation, Zope [Abstract]
   
Jacob Hallén, Python Business Forum, OpenSource Software, Government and
Industry [Abstract]
  
Nick Guzman, Jim Michelson, The George Washington University Center for
Emergency Preparedness and Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute,
Washington, DC, Building a Secure Collaborative Environment Using Zope's
Content Management Framework

Andreas Tille, Robert Koch-Institute, Integrated software environment
for all medical tasks based on Debian, GNU/Linux [Abstract]

Ross Lazarus, Harvard University, Open source in Sndromic Surveillance
for Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness [Abstract]

Andrew Ho, UCLA, OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes [Abstract]


-- 

Tim C

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