We discuss the role of the Django Software Foundation in the larger community and how/why to become more involved. Editing note: James Bennett is the Secretary of the DSF, not the Treasurer.
Will Vincent 0:06
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Django chat, a weekly podcast on the Django web framework. My name is Will Vincent. I'm here with Carlton Gibson. Hi, Carlton Halliwell. And this week, we're going to talk about the Django Software Foundation, which runs Django. And more broadly talk about what that does and how the code is managed. And yeah, hopefully, shed some light on all the behind the scenes work that makes Django what is let's start off, Carlton, what is the Django Software Foundation?
Carlton Gibson 0:34
Well, okay, so it's the body which has responsibility for the governance of the Django software project, right, the Django the the thing you use to build your web apps. And we, that we talked in some previous episodes of it like Frank and others about the history of the DSF. But one of the early decisions was, when it was decided to open source it was to make it kind of a community run and community based thing and to do it in For one of the benefits of the right way, and so the Django Software Foundation was the the the organization created to do that.
Will Vincent 1:07
Yeah. So it's a nonprofit that has the legal and financial responsibility for Django. And I think it might be an interesting point to make about how open sources organized and governed. Because at the end of the day, all open source needs some degree of money for various things. And usually, there's sort of three buckets. One would be a corporate sponsor, so like Google, with Angular Facebook, with react, where it's engineers within the company, build something that they need, and then they have permission to open source it. And those engineers are paid by those companies and can work on the framework project. There's a solo case. So this would be like Vue JS with revenue, or Laravel. With Taylor, what's his name, where you have sort of a monopoly so you're rated at who monetize or Linus Torvalds with Linux, who, you know, monetize it through consulting or other ways, but there's sort of one Solo person, or there is the nonprofit and I actually don't know that many other open source places that are set up as a nonprofit. But this is what Django did right from the beginning with the idea that we don't want it to be limited by one or two individuals. So Django actually did have took a page out of the Python book with benevolent dictators for life. So python programming language, Guido van Rossum, who created it was the sort of last arbiter if there was a dispute that couldn't be settled, though he just stepped down from that, but he was that for many years, and for Django, Adrian and Jacob had that role for a number of years, but they stepped away three years ago, we'll put the link. But again, but it was always the Django trademark and the legal financial stuff was put into this nonprofit, basically, yeah, when it was launched, which is very, very forward thinking. And so the DSF you know, is where your money goes. If you contribute to Django, which you should it pays the fellows Carlton In Mario's it contributes to conferences does a number of community things, but is separate from the technical side. So the DSF does not tell, you know, Carlton, her or core members what to do. Instead it protects and promotes Django itself?
Carlton Gibson 3:18
Yeah, I mean, so Maurice and I, we have a brief with our job is to triage tickets handle security releases, handle the releases of the the project, work with the on the community side. So, you know, be active in the forums and the mailing list to the extent that we have time, but you know, these are kind of audit priorities, like, you know, that we can't, we don't spend all our time on the mailing list, because we're spending all our time on the issue tracker, though, you know, it's, but we'll pop in on the mailing list where we can, but we're not you know, it's not like the DSF is, so you're on the DSF board. It's not like you're ringing me up and saying, hey, Colin, you need to work on this. We'll work on that. It's very much self.
Will Vincent 3:56
No. So
Carlton Gibson 3:58
I think we have to be, I think from legal perspective, we have to be
Will Vincent 4:01
well, and even, you know, this is a little bit into the weeds. But so I'm the treasurer of Django Software Foundation, but I'm not allowed to be paid as a board member, even though there's all this work that's done. So there's, there's a woman, Catherine Holmes, who's fantastic, who does a lot of the actual execution of, you know, sending a Western Union check to Xyz place. So there are sort of these rules set up, but But yeah, the Django Software Foundation, a lot of it is thinking about you as corporate sponsors. There's a couple of them that provide majority of the budget actually. So having conversations with them to make sure they're getting something from it. It's a lot of it is taking requests for various outreach. So Django girls, or the DSF helps with conferences or different events, but alive it is, but you know, it's an interesting thing because like all nonprofits, it sort of needs to exist, but it's not trying to make money, right, like the DSF could snap its fingers and do any number of things to make more money. But that's not really what it's around for. It's around two to pay the fellow To do a bit of stuff, but really just to protect chango itself,
Carlton Gibson 5:04
right. And the idea, the important thing is that Django is sustainable, not just this year, but you know, five years hence, right? We want.
Will Vincent 5:10
Yeah. And that's one thing that Frank, who's the president talks about is that, you know, one of his longer term goals is to have some degree of, so the overall budget is like around $200,000, by the way, so it's basically nothing in the scheme of things that he wants to have, you know, $50,000, or some amount that can be used for the day when Django goes away. And that will happen, that someone can turn out the lights, right, that it's not just like, Django is gone, because some new hotness came in. So that's one of his goals. That's one of the examples but also things like protecting the Django trademark. Who's going to do that? Well, the DSF steps in in those cases, if there's so yeah, so these are some of the examples and I you know, as I learn more on the board, I'll share them but but basically, it's the main point is it's separate from the code itself, which is Currently the Django core team, the fellows, the security team, to different realms, a lot of overlap, same people on the same places like James Bennett is the treasure on the DSF. And, obviously, core member, but separate realms in terms of responsibilities.
Carlton Gibson 6:16
Yeah, I mean, it's just little, well, I say little things, but they're not little things. It's like the servers to run the Django project.com website and Doc's dot bring the doc stop Django project on site. Well, those need funding those need, you know, resourcing, so there's an ops team, but there's also an ops budget that has to come out the
Will Vincent 6:35
Yep, the SF funds, the official Twitter account for Django. You know, I have access to that now in the context of being the treasurer. So, you know, historically, there hasn't been much effort around fundraising. And again, that's some of the things we're talking about is, you know, if if the budget doubled, are there things that we could do that we're not currently doing? Maybe Maybe not right, but the discussion needs to be had Cuz one of my goals is to add, for example, a merchandise site to Django, which I'm,
Carlton Gibson 7:04
yeah, I really wanna, I wanna, I want to buy a Django Django pony pin I want, you know,
Will Vincent 7:10
yeah, we have all the resources. I mean, these these have been set up, we have, we have all that stuff, I'm gonna make that happen. But it's, you know, if I could just do it, but I'm doing it within the DSF. I mean, I could just like do it and collect money and give it to the DSF. But I'm doing it within the construct the DSF. So it's a little bit more work to do, but like, that's an example of something that we will have that will help the community, all the money will go right into the DSF. And, you know, and there's any number of other things like, you know, Django does not do, you know, corporate sponsor, there's no job board there. You know, there's all these levers that could be pulled if they need to be. But yeah, you know, it's a question of whether they need to be pulled though. For example, I think the fellows certainly should be paid well, and enticed to stay on since the knowledge that you and Mario's have built up, you know, can't be can't be paid enough. That's not why you do it. But it's there's all these concerns. But what two things you said that one is about doing the shop within the merchandise shop within the contract of the DSF. And I think that's really important because it's about sustainability. So you could set up a merchandise shop and you could run it for a year. And then you could be like, I haven't got time for this for whatever any, any number of totally legitimate reasons. Like I haven't got time to keep giving time away for nothing, because I've got family, I've got work I've got, you know, pressures of life. Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 8:24
absolutely valid. But if you were doing it as a sort of set solo project that would then die and it would go away. Whereas if it can be set up within the auspices of the DSS, it can continue. And this is where Django has succeeded, where so many open source projects have failed. Is that Django now there? Yes, there are some old hands who are still around, but they are not the people doing the majority of the work on Django now, they they're very knowledgeable, they're available, they're still got time to give, but the the new stuff is new contributors, and Django has made this move from the original cohort to a fresh start. And still going and it's still vibrant. And it's there's still more people coming in. And there's still old hands around and doesn't matter, you know that that that longevity of the project is directly responsible to that. And I, I suspect it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the DSF and the DSF structure.
Will Vincent 9:16
Yeah, no, exactly. And, and, you know, and honestly, I'm so impressed by, you know, Frank and the other board members and the work, James that they have been doing and continue to do, just again, with that, that goal in mind, because it's great to work on something everyone's passionate, most people aren't being paid. You know, it's just like, we're all like, yeah, like we, and people understand that life gets in the way, right. Like, people can't always do the same level of contribution. But But again, the key distinction is there is a DSF. It's a nonprofit that manages the legal financial side. It is separate from the code side, though it funds a lot of this work. And this is all set up with the idea of making Django bigger than any one or two people said, you know, it will exist in Hopefully perpetuate for some time to come until some other greatness comes out or as is happening now like things are being moved into into Django itself right like all this async work that you're dealing with that Andrew gardens working on Christie and others are working on you know it is being put into Django itself large Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 10:18
but there's but like, you know, a lot of the talk thus far has been about how will you know what about the end of Django Django is not ending this is the thing is that Adam Johnson, who's one of the contributors might we came on the show, we talked about my SQL and you know why we might use that instead of Postgres or whatever. But he uses scrapers we want to maintain Jango till the heat death of the universe. And now, why not like so we but let's talk about bringing in a content negotiation framework is you know, it's all kind of new new features that are coming in and will bubbling and will appear. Django is fresh and lively and it's, it's, you know, it's still vibrant and you so you come along as a new contributor and you can give your you know, you've got one evening a week where you can give an hour and a half One evening a week, if you can give that time super. You give that for three, six months. And then you think, Oh, you know what, I haven't actually got the time to continue to sit. That's great too. Because you know, you'll still be around, you're still in the community. And then a year's time you come back, you say, Yeah, do you know what that that hour a week that I used to really enjoy doing? I've got time to do that again. And I'm back and I'm going to give some more. And that's how Django works. And because it's a nonprofit, and because it's a community run, thing. Like it's not like you're lining the pocket of someone else you you contribute to, you have
Will Vincent 11:29
to exactly to
Carlton Gibson 11:31
a an open source project that's run by mega Corp. You are lining mega Corp shareholders pockets with free labor. you contribute to Django? Yeah, there are companies using Django to make money and those companies should be contributing back to the DSF financially, and probably they're not doing it to extend here. But when you contribute to Django, you can keep contributing to a Django community project, not mega corpse private tool,
Will Vincent 11:55
even though it's open Exactly. And I would just, you know, we said this in a lot of podcasts, but the community is really Fantastic in Django and contributing knowledge different ways is a great way to to see that.
Carlton Gibson 12:04
Right. So how do you get involved? Well, okay, you can contribute to Django and all the rest, but you could also join the DSF. So there's an advocate online webform, you've got to fill in. And, you know, all you have to do is say, look, I use Django in my work, and I love it. And you could, you can join the DSF. And then you can be on the DSF mailing list, and you can find out, you know, about what's going on. And you can vote in the elections for the board members. And you could you couldn't help have a say in the future Django,
Will Vincent 12:29
where you need to apply to be a member.
Carlton Gibson 12:32
Yeah, but I don't think the plaintiff member it's not like, I don't think it's like, you know, you have to have crawled over broken glass to, to join, I think
Will Vincent 12:43
we can see if we keep this internet, I mean, there's around 180 people, like for example, the most recent board meeting, we had a couple people were submitted and was basically like, do we know who these people are? If we do there and if we don't, they're not
Carlton Gibson 12:54
Yeah, so Okay. So be part of the community and then you can join the DSF, right. So if you're known, if you What did we say in another episode? We said, you know, write a blog post, right, you know, contribute, right? Go to a conference.
Will Vincent 13:07
Anything. I mean, they let me on as a member, you know, I haven't done a third party package. Nobody
Carlton Gibson 13:14
wrote a blog post.
Will Vincent 13:17
But then they then you can vote Yeah, that that is who votes on the board for example, every year. Yeah. So and get involved. It's not doesn't cost you anything. And we in Django needs this Django needs people who are using it to to speak up and say, I'm in you know, XYZ country, I'm using this this use case. And it's may be something that we're not, you know, Django the DSF is not thinking about, but we should. So you got to raise the flag and let us know. I mean, the whole point of the DSF in our meetings is to try to understand what the community is doing, and help Django represent that community. Like that's the whole point of it. So
Carlton Gibson 13:52
yeah, I think, you know, we talked we talked about in another episode about some of the resources we talked about Jango snippets, which has got some great stuff. content in it. And it's very interesting to read through the content, but it needs an update. But if people were, you know, people are listening to this thinking, you know, I could do a bit of contributing, not necessarily Django itself. Well, you know, could you help run Django snippets and put some pull requests in there to make update that, or, you know, there's a Django people website, which has kind of needs a lot of work in love. There's Django packages always needs activity. There's all the jazz band profit profit projects, which all need Yeah, man. You know,
Will Vincent 14:28
yeah. And if you take you can take a selfish approach, this is the best way to get a job now or in the future is to be involved to be out there to be public. You know, I mean, honestly, I started writing the books because I was out jogging, you know, was with a startup that got acquired. And as I was interviewing, I was like, you know, I've always wanted to write these books, like, even if they don't sell, I think that'd be a good thing to do. And, you know, they helped me so to the point where I could have, you know, gotten the jobs I wanted, but the books are doing well enough, I could just do that. So it's I don't It's more productive use to give back then to send, you know, an extra 50 resumes out into the nether, I would say.
Carlton Gibson 15:07
Yeah, I mean, what's the trick? There is a in the marketplace, there is a massive shortage of developer skills, right? If we're going to get into jobs and hiring, right,
Will Vincent 15:17
and it's Yeah, it's a land problem,
Carlton Gibson 15:19
right. And yet, for cars, you can't get hired, right? Or it's difficult to find the job. Well, the number one way beyond, you know, developing your skills and all those things, which you do at your keyboard that you're very comfortable with is getting out there and being sociable and going to a meetup or go doing a blog post and putting it out there or whatever it is, that is your thing that enables you to put yourself out there, but doing that will get you hired much quicker than, you know reading another book on you know, yeah, this or whatever
Will Vincent 15:49
it is, it is networking. And, you know, for me, I mean, you've been doing this for forever, Carlton, but I'm still however many years into Django. I mean, I've made peace with the fact that I will My skills are improving hopefully every day in a marginal way. But I am by no means the most qualified person to host a podcast on Django. And yet, here I am, because I'm just doing it. And so that's provides value. And, you know, and I think also, it's, I've thought more and more about this to get philosophical for a second about, you know, if I'm not coding hardcore Python or Django things every day part of me feels like my skills are atrophying, but I think it's really more that, you know, we all have that in the back of our head, right? I'm, it's not imposter syndrome. I've been doing this long enough to be like, you know, I could go and figure that out. I've done it before. It's more just thinking about there's different types of work and knowledge, right. So when I spend when you and I talk about community members that contributes when we when I talk with people about architecture questions, like more and more, I'm talking more high level stuff. You know, that that counts, right? I should, I shouldn't have this idea in the back of my head that like, I'm like, you know, my foundation is being degraded. It's more like I have spent a lot of time and I have that foundation, and I do I will spend time with to, you know, get back to that, but it all fits together. Right? So the conversation you have at a meetup with someone writing a blog post, talking about architecture with this, and that being the stupidest person in the room, you know, that makes you better. And then you turn around and go, Oh, actually, I know something right? People look to you and say, What do you know? And you are you go? Well, actually, I, I do have an answer. I do have an opinion on here. Because I've been doing all these things that are community related. And it's not, again, just bring it back. It's not just only staring at your keyboard and you know, doing project EULA, which is great and fun, right? But it's not. It's not all that kind of stuff. And that's not what gets you hired, right? It's it's no, no, no blog posts speaking all the rest, because because people don't work with code. They work with human beings, and they can't. And the problem is coding is it's hard to tell it's not like a doctor. People can't tell if you're any good unless you show them something. So how do you show them something? Probably you can't show the code you wrote your job. So maybe you have an open source project. Or maybe you just gave a talk just something. Maybe it was a request on
Carlton Gibson 17:59
Django. Filter?
Will Vincent 18:00
Yes, that's the best thing to do. But do a documentation ticket if you've again, if you've contributed to Django, in any capacity and you're applying for a job with Java, Django, top of the queue, like, right, they've hired people
Carlton Gibson 18:12
top of the queue. Right? But you've said, Yeah, and you've said, write a blog post to a conference talk or whatever, maybe not even that, like maybe that's actually setting the bar too high in that, if you've gone to the YouTube channel and watched the videos from the conferences, and then you've pinged the author, the the the person have a talk that you gave and said, oh, wow, I watched your, you know, 2017 talk on so and so's house. It was amazing. And I did this and they'll be like, Wow, great. And then you've made a connection in the world. And then you go to a job interview, and they say, well, what's your, you know, favorite aspect of Django and you're like, well, that you can use indexes in this way from the array, you know, just declare, and you're talking about something and they're see your library nurse and they see that you know, this stuff. Yeah. And all you did was watch a video.
Will Vincent 18:55
Yeah, well, and I mean, I watched the video that you gave Carlton, I sent you an email and you That was just a nice here there. But then when I met you at Django con, it was like, oh, there's, we've we've discussed before. Yeah. And the same way there's, you know, probably for me, there's several dozen people who've read, you know, commented on something, I've done a book and post video, you know, said something, and maybe they followed up with a question. And, and we have a dialogue, and I'm, I'm happy to help these people, right, because they, they informed my ability to teacher, but also, if you think about, you know, purely transactionally like they're getting a lot of value out of me. Yeah. And, but I'm getting something out of them, too. So again, the community wants, wants you whatever your level.
Carlton Gibson 19:36
Yeah, I deeply uncomfortable about treating human relationships transactionally all the time. Right.
Will Vincent 19:45
You know, I don't I don't go into them as a psychopath. What I try to you know, sometimes you have these moments, you're like, why am I doing this?
Carlton Gibson 19:51
I think it's America TV and point to be made that these things are incommensurate, like they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be measured on the same scale. I don't know. I don't know. We'll come back to that. Anyhow, so how so? How have we got from the DSF? to this talk about community hits? Because that's what the DSF is, right? It's community based and
Will Vincent 20:08
all of us. Yes. And the DSF, and a lot of the Django bigwigs are they want to hear from you, wherever you are. So take the time to send them an email tweet, right to the Django Software Foundation come to a conference, it can only help, right, either. Well, if you have a question, and that's technical, we'll set you on the right course. Or maybe it's a really deep question that it's probably something that if it seems like it hasn't been solved, you know, it's probably an ongoing debate within the Django community too, because that's the thing that I, I realized more and more, there are some things that are great, you know, new ideas, like, yeah, we should have a merchandise shop. Well, there's actually a bunch of people have had that idea. And I've gotten 80% of the way there. It just needs someone to take it over the line, right? There's a whole bunch of those things that can happen. What's the best way to get in touch, you can send emails if you go in the Django forum. We mentioned that in a previous episode on resources. That's maybe the best place to go because everyone can see it and chime in. And I would say go there. It's good place. Designed for these non, it doesn't have to be a narrow technical thing it can be. But it can be a broader, more subjective thing around using Django in interesting ways. So yeah, go there, and then people get to know you. Right, and who knows where that will go.
Carlton Gibson 21:20
That was the Django Software Foundation, right? So it's the body that helps maintain a framework and we do that with the fellows and the other contributors and you no
Will Vincent 21:29
longer Django if you use it, you really should contribute even if it's a small amount, we'll put the link it goes to the sustainability of Jango which doesn't come from nothing. And it's not being run to make money at all. It's being run to exist and perpetuate Django till the what the heat end of the universe.
Carlton Gibson 21:48
Yeah, heat death. The heat death of the universe was Adams face. Yeah, yeah. No, but Okay, so let's stop now. But if your company uses Django, then your company should sponsor the DSF like, talk to your boss.
Will Vincent 22:00
Yeah, think about it. Like, what was the value Django is providing for for you and your company? What is that worth? I mean, we had, we have an episode that has come out with Tom Christie, who runs Django rest framework. You know, he went to companies and said, let me work for you full time for $100 a month, which is was the cost of a small number of companies to let him focus on Django rest framework, like, what is Django worth to you? Or if you're an engineer within these companies, there's probably a way that you can, you know, half a country was under charity. It's a nonprofit, but a way that you can have access to directing the company's giving. Django is a great place to do that, especially if you're using Django.
Carlton Gibson 22:35
Okay, thanks so much. And join us next time. Bye bye.
Will Vincent 22:40
All right. Bye. Bye, everyone.