[Python-Dev] Democracy (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Sat, 26 Apr 2003 23:28:59 -0400

> > A better comparison would be Habitat for Humanity (and voluntary > > associations in general). [...] > On 23 April 2003, Guido van Rossum said: > Maybe. I get lots of junk mail asking for contributions from > HforH and frankly I've always thought of them as yet another > charity: there are lots of these, and most of them are so much > larger than our community that comparison is difficult.

[Greg Ward]

Don't forget, the PSF is gunning for charity status too. That's just the most obvious way to state legally, "We are a community with shared values, etc. etc.". I think there are a lot of parallels between open source development and other volunteer organizations. Heck, I like to justify the occasional weekend spent hunkered down in front of the computer by saying I'm doing volunteer work. IMHO, hacking on Python is the moral equivalent of helping to maintain public-access hiking trails. (Although the latter is better exercise, it's nice not to have to jump in the shower after a day spent hacking on Python. ;-)

Sure (although I hope you jump in the shower anyway :). But I don't want the PSF to grow to the point where we have to send junk mail to people who haven't heard about us.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)