[EuroPython] EPC as an EuroPython Association SIG

[Dario Lopez-Kästen]

Hello,

actually I shouldn't be writing this letter now, because it is too late
(1.41 in the morning), but here goes anyway. My impressions, my
observations, my analysis. I may be wrong - in which case I beg of you to
correct me so that we can summarise the state of affairs so far and how we
ought to move forward.

My personal impression is the EPC is THE conference of the EuroPython
community. It is community work, and as such it is performed in an ad hoc
way.

So far it seems clear that a) the EPC 2003 was a success and b) the success
was because of those who invested time and effort organsising the event -
often far more time and effort than was expected. For this we are all
gratefull.

It is also clear that so far, volunteering to organise the EPC means, worst
case, a big personal financial and cerdibility risk, because there is no
legal entity behind the EPC taking all the heat - just a bunch of
individuals trying to make a conference. This, in general, makes organising
the EPC a risky business on many levels.

The shortcomings of the way the EPC has been organised so far, make
themselves apparent when it relates to issues that lie outside the
practicalities of organising the event itself.

The discussion started off with the way it was decided where the next
conference was to be held - that decision was made in the ad hoc spirit of
the way the EPC was organised.

A brief discussion of how/if to re-imburse those working with the EPC
conference took, again rasing questions of how suc things are decided, by
what authority, etc.

Then a great deal of time was spent in presenting alternatives of the EPC
location - making apparent once more the lack of structured ways to collect
information and make such decisions.

Now, lately there is discussion of how to make the EPC a SIG under an
organised body, such as the PBF - making the EP community a SIG under the
PBF has been suggested, as well.

All of the above, imho, should lead us to the obvious conclusion: we need to
formalise the way the EuroPython Community organises itself. For various
reasons, we need the structure and strength that a formal entity can give
us. Simply put, we need a EuroPython Association, formalised in a similar
manner to how PBF is, to back up and sponsor the activities of the EP
community - specifically backing up the EPC, it being the largest event of
the EP community to date.

There are some valid objectiona to build a formal entity, and EuroZope has
ben pointed out as an example of such an entity not working to it's full
potential.

However, I think that there are other reasons for EuroZope not working,
among them the fact that EuroPython pretty much covers a lot of Zope-land,
and also the fact, that it, at least for me personally, is not clear what
kind of work EuroZope is supposed to do. Several of the activities listed
this year relate to Zope being promoted at various fairs in Europe.

In my personal opinion, EuroZope had a bad start with various important bits
of information being availabe in German only, many references being made for
a German speaking audience only, something which was brought up on the
mailinglist as well. It is also very difficult to become a member of
EuroZope; the link on the site is dead:
http://www.eurozope.de/EuroDe/Members.

(this is not bashing EuroZope and those working in it - I appreciate first
hand the difficulties in running a community user group from current
personal experience)

Conferences usually are a, if not the, main event of many communities, and
there simply is not enough space for both a large Zope conference in Europe
as well as an equally large Python conference. People would have to choose
which one to attend, thus diluting the amount of participants for each.

Note that this is also my argument against having more than one Europe-wide
Python conference - we simply are not large enough, at least not yet.

There is no reason why this should happen to an EPA. With regard to the
objection that if we have an EPA people will fall back and wait for the
board to do all the work: I would like to point out that that is exaclty the
situation now anyway - I didn't exactly notice the organisers of EPC beating
off hoards of volunteers with a stick... still it works because there are
those that think this kind of work is fun.

We also have one crucial valuable thing regarding the EPC - it has it's own
momentum, almost giving it a life of it's own.

So, I really think it is time to form an EuroPython Association. I would
*very* much like to know the details of the work Denis have carried out in
this regard. I personally do not think that we need to go thru the trouble
of making it an International Association. Indeed, I sincerely would prefer
that we set up it up modelled after the PBF - either resembling or making it
an actual Swedish non-profit society - which is has the advantages of being
both less buerocratic and faster to setup while still being a legally valid
non-profit in an EU-country.

I spent the weekend writing the bylaws of an imagined EuroPython
Association.

Further I propose that, at the forming of the EPA, the EPC be immediately
constituted as a SIG under the EPA and immediately set to work on realising
the EPC 2004.

Why not form the EPC as a PBF SIG? Becausae it think that the EPA and the
PBF have different goals that complement each other. If we want to keep the
EPC a community event, then it should be under the EPA.

The only thing required to form an EPA based on the above, is to announce a
meeting, hold the meeting and elect a board, form the sig, and presto.

Denis - how does this fit into the work you have done?

/dario
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Dario Lopez-Kästen, IT Systems & Services Chalmers University of Tech.

PS: For those that want to look at the bylaws I constructed as proposal, you
are welcome to look at this url:

http://www.ita.chalmers.se/~dario/europython/ep_bylaws_proposal.txt