Read the Docs: growing with a little help from its friends at the PSF (and elsewhere)

Today's post, like the previous one, features a development project that the PSF has been delighted to fund once again this year.

On April 28, 2015, the PSF Board unanimously approved the following resolution:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation grant  $8,000 to Read the Docs, Inc. for developmental work.

What is RTD?

Looking for somewhere to host your open source project’s documentation in a way that will make it readily available, easy to find, fully searchable for your users, and exportable in PDF format, while at the same time offering you ease of use and the ability to add content as your project develops? Then, you’ll want to check out Read the Docs, the world’s largest documentation website for open source projects. 

Read the Docs

… hosts documentation, making it fully searchable and easy to find. You can import your docs using any major version control system, including Mercurial, Git, Subversion, and Bazaar. We support webhooks so your docs get built when you commit code. There’s also support for versioning so you can build docs from tags and branches of your code in your repository.

RTD’s History

RTD was created in 2010 by Eric Holscher, Charles Leifer, and Bobby Grace for the 2010 Django Dash. Eric tells the interesting story at Djangocon. A Django Dash is a coding contest that allows 48 hours for development and implementation of a project. Eric and his team considered what to do and decided that, since current documentation hosting was less than satisfactory, they could be of most help to the community by creating a web-based doc hosting solution. They agreed that Sphinx was the best document tool for Python, so they went with that.

According to Eric, 2011 was the year that saw RTD go … from a hobby project, into something projects depended on. At that point, they were hosting documentation for Celery, Fabric, Nose, py.test, Virtualenv, Pip, Django CMS, Django, Grapelli/Floppyforms/Sentry, mod_wsgi. Currently, they are hosting what Eric describes as a decent part of the Python ecosystem, including SQL Academy, Pyramid, Requests, Minecraft Overviewer, and many others. They have over 50 contributors, 7500 users, and get over 15,000,000 pageviews a month. The code for RTD is on GitHub and its documentation can be found on the site. Rackspace provides free hosting. A full list of features is available on the site.

Photo Credit: Aaron Hockley, October 2014 

Creative Commons license 2.00

Use of PSF Grant

The PSF award was part of a fundraising drive that opened at PyCon 2015 and brought in $24,000 USD from 157 contributions since then (see the RTD Blog). Corporate sponsors included Twilio, Sentry, DreamHost, and Lincoln Loop; with service sponsorships from Elastic Search, MaxCDN, and Gandi.

This funding will support RTD for 3 months of development work on the path toward sustainability as an open source project. More specifically, the funds will allow RTD to hire 2 part-time paid positions: Community Developer and Operations Developer (see RTD Blogpost for details and how to apply).

Furthermore, RTD intends to document its use of PSF grant money;  how development time is spent and how funds are allocated will be posted on RTD’s public Trello board.

If you’d like to help, you can contribute to RTD at Gratipay and you can follow them on Twitter.

I would love to hear from readers. Please send feedback, comments, or blog ideas to me at msushi@gnosis.cx.

PSF Python Job Board relaunched !

Announcing: the brand new PSF Python Job Board

We are happy to announce that we have successfully relaunched the PSF Python Job Board.

After almost one year of development and lots of work by our volunteers and contractors, we are now live with the new Python job board system.

New modern system

The new system is fully integrated into the python.org website. Job submitters can create an account on the system, log in and directly submit their job posting for approval by the PSF Job Board Team.

The team can then review the postings, check them against our submission criteria, possibly fixing some formatting, and then approve or reject the postings directly through a web interface.

No more sending dozens of emails back and forth to get the job template fixed and adding jobs to the website by hand.

Thank you to our volunteers

The new system was a major effort for all of us and I'd like to say thank you from the PSF to everyone who helped make this happen (in alphabetical order):

Reviewers:

• Simon Hayward
• Melanie Jutras
• Marc-Andre Lemburg
• Giles Thomas

Developers:

• Wiktor Bachnik
• James Bennett
• Jacob Burch
• Jon Clements
• Gil Gonçalves
• Simon Hayward
• Sarah Kuchinsky
• Marc-Andre Lemburg
• Berker Peksag
• Benjamin Peterson
• Frank Wiles

Plus everyone I forgot in this list (sorry; mail me and I'll have you added).

We'd also like to thank to Martin Thomas and Chris Withers, who each ran the Python Job Board for several years by email before the job board team was set up.

Job submitters

If you want to submit a job, please visit the how-to page which describes the process.

Submissions are free, but we'd appreciate a thank you in form of a donation to the PSF.

Job seekers

You can click through the jobs on the jobs listing or subscribe to the RSS feed we have for the listings.

Please note that we do not post CVs on the site. You will have to contact the companies directly.

Good luck with finding a new job !

Brand new bugs for free

As with every new system, there are still some bugs left. If you find something, please report it on the Github issue tracker.

More information

More information on the PSF Python Job Board and the relaunch project is available on our project page:

• PSF Python Job Board

If you have questions, please write to jobs@python.org.

Enjoy,
--
Marc-Andre Lemburg
Director, Python Software Foundation

Python Job Board - Call for volunteers

Dear Python Community,

for many years, the Python Job board was run by volunteers - most of the time by just one volunteer at a time until they moved on to spend their time on other things. We've now reached such a point again.

In these years, the volume on the job board has significantly increased, as it got more and more popular. It is now at around 2-5 postings per day and most of those positions get filled quickly
- which is an indication of how useful this service is to the Python community.

To scale up and revive the job board, the PSF would now like to setup a *team of volunteers* to run the job board and this is our call for help.

How does the job board work ?

At the moment, the job board is maintained on the legacy site , but since we've launched our brand new website, we'd like to move the job board over to that site.

Instead of the repository based approach used on the old site, the new site has database support to aid in more easily processing and filing job listings.

There's a job board mailing list which helps coordinate the task of reviewing and filing job offers. Currently, all job submissions get sent to this mailing list, but with the job board app, the submission process can be moved over to the website's database.

What does it take to run the job board ?

You have to review the job postings, request changes if they are too long, don't clearly state the need for Python skills, or have quality issues.

After review, the job board app will then allow posting the jobs on the website by simply setting the status to published.

Communication with the submitters is usually done by email and via the mailing list, so all team members can see the communication and help out if necessary.

Please note: This is just a high level overview. The details need to be hashed out by the new team.

Does the job board app work already ?

It does, but is disabled at the moment due to lack of volunteers.

Since the site just launched there may also well be some issues with the job board app.

On the positive side there's a lot happening around the site at the moment, so if you have change requests, these will usually be implemented quickly - or you can jump in, hack on the job board app and submit a pull request yourself:

• https://github.com/python/pythondotorg/tree/master/jobs

These are exciting times and this is your chance to make a difference !

Ok, I like new challenges - where do I sign up ?

Great :-) Please write to jobs@python.org

I have a question...

If you have questions, you can write to the jobs list at jobs@python.org or the PSF board at psf@python.org.

Many thanks,
Marc-Andre Lemburg
Director, Python Software Foundation

python.org is getting a makeover!

It is with great pride that on behalf of the Python Software Foundation and the community as a whole, I am pleased to announce that the official Python.org website, sub-sites, and back-end architecture are getting a total makeover.

Introduction

Python has grown significantly in the last few years, both in terms of audience and the amount of topical information about it. This abundance of information has outgrown the current website’s taxonomy and fundamental design.

The key goal of the redesign project is to update Python’s official web presence with an eye towards better organizing the information we have today, and expect to add in the future.

The end result aims to help our audience find the information they need whether it’s official information like downloads and documentation, or resources from our vibrant community.

Although the current implementation of the Python website has served its purpose over the years, the time has come for the site to progress and complement the growth and maturity of the language itself as well as the vibrancy of the community.

There’s a lot we want to achieve

• Modern design and experience
• Concise and intuitive navigation
• Showcase the simplicity and elegance of the language
• Attract and convert potential Python users and Python Software Foundation sponsors
• Represent our vibrant, active community
• Make it easy for a wide range of contributors to add content
• Enhance the visibility of the PSF and its sponsors
• Provide examples of success stories
• Enhance the visibility of alternate implementations
• Stable and scalable infrastructure

The redesign involves some tall tasks. From the fresh and modern UI/UX to the online and offline content editing features, no aspect of the project is to be taken lightly, or even incrementally. Such approaches have stalled and ultimately failed in the past, and rapidly outstrip the free time our community of volunteers can dedicate to the project.

The Process

This is a process that started over two years ago with the drafting of the of the Request For Proposals. This year we issued it publicly, and since that time the psf-redesign team grew to include Nick Coghlan, Doug Hellmann, Idan Gazit, Steve Holden, Brian Curtin, Andrew Kuchling, Issac Kelly, Katie Cunningham, Noah Kantrowitz and others.

The team received seven bids in total - all of them which included strong points and compelling stories. The team deliberated, ranked, discussed, and asked questions of the bidders, working through the bids for several months. We were constantly impressed by the high quality, well thought out, professional work that the community members submitted to us.

After the review period came to a close, we had a single bid which ranked higher than any of the others, based on experience, references, and overall quality of the proposal. They'll be working with the second highest rated bid, which contained UI/UX and IA that absolutely floored the reviewers.

The first bid, submitted by a joint effort between Project Evolution and Revolution Systems, was the overall highest ranked bid. The team was unanimous in our recommendation to proceed forward with this bid based on the credentials of the team, quality of the proposal, and their deep understanding of how to work with volunteer organizations, oversight and the community as a whole.

This bid provides a clear project management and accountability system as well as detailing how they wish to work with the community as a whole to achieve the project goals.

Second, we had the Divio.ch team bid. The IA/UX/UI work which they poured over 120 hours into as a company impressed us a great deal. We were quite literally floored by the amount of thought, planning, and work invested in the visual and IA aspects of the Divio bid.

Together with Project Evolution and Revolution Systems leading the project, and the stellar Divio team consulting on the visual/IA aspects of the project, the redesign team and the board is sure that we will be able to deliver a next generation experience. The architecture being developed will achieve all of the goals we set forth when we went down the path of drafting the redesign RFP.

On September 26th, the Python Software Foundation's board of directors unanimously approved the combined bids:

RESOLVED, that the Python Software Foundation accept the Python.org site redesign proposal set forth by Project Evolution / Revolution Systems and Divio with a budget not to exceed $70,000 in total without further board approval.

Overview of the Accepted Bids

The redesign project will completed by the three teams, Project Evolution, RevSys, and Divio, with a division of labor using the best aspects of each team. The project plan and the back end will be handled by members of Project Evolution and RevSys. Members of Project Evolution will handle the front end work, incorporating the guidance of the Divio team.

The accepted bids from the three entities can be found below:

• Project Evolution and Revolution Systems Bid
• Divio Bid

Project Evolution

Project Evolution (PE) is a design driven development team founded in 1999 with clients ranging from school districts to Fortune 1000 fashion conglomerates with international holdings. The 12-person team includes creative leads, front-end and back-end developers, and associated support staff all committed to open-source technology.

Revolution Systems

Revolution Systems, LLC., based in Lawrence, Kansas, was formed in 2002 by Frank Wiles to help businesses benefit from open source software. While many large organizations use open source software internally (sometimes without their knowledge), he realized that many organizations did not know how to properly take advantage of this revolutionary type of software.

Divio

Divio, a web agency located in Zürich, Switzerland, builds web applications and is specialised in the areas of design and development. For production, Divio uses the Django web framework and is heavily involved in the development of the successful open source projects django CMS and django SHOP.

The company relies on the agile SCRUM-methodology for its projects.

Screenshots, Maybe?

As if the bids and the prospect of the project were not enough to get you excited, I thought I might share some tidbits from the current mockups we're working through:

In Closing

I am sincerely proud, as both a Python community member and PSF director, to have been part of this process. The entire review team, every single submitted bid, and the Foundation's board works tirelessly for a great deal of time pulling together what is already turning out to be an impressive and surprising redesign.

The design will work on mobile devices. It will follow all of the guidelines of the RFP, support accessibility requirements, and much much more.
Most of all, it will showcase our language and global community like it has never has been before.

Jesse Noller (person post on this), Director Python Software Foundation, on behalf of the entire team.

How Useful is the Python Job Board?

A service that the PSF has run for a very long time now is the Python Job Board. This allows any potential employer with a requirement for Python skills to post a free advertisement. The service is free because it is primarily intended to benefit Python community members. Employers are encouraged, but not required, to contribute to the Foundation.

So what I'd like to know is this: how useful is that service? If you have ever found the Job Board helpful, as either employee or employer, or even just to keep an eye on the Python employment market, please post a brief comment here letting us know what the Board did for you.

Employers and agents: please read this page before submitting jobs: the Board is run by volunteers, and you can make their task easier.