On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Paul-Olivier Dehaye <paul-olivier.deh...@math.uzh.ch> wrote: > In the big wave of emails exchanged today, I sent this one, by accident to > the wrong mailing list. I recopy it below: > > When I went to pycon, the most important thing I learned is the importance > of a diverse community for the development of python. This I learned from > the top, the board of the Python Software Foundation (cf. Lindberg's > keynote at pycon, for instance), and saw in action absolutely everywhere. > > This diversity is to be understood in a very broad sense: > - diversity of origins, > - diversity of genders, > - diversity of lifestyles, > - diversity of professional activities, > - ... > > I can egocentrically agree with the PSF on the fourth: the fact that python > is tied to so many different fields, ranging from professional software > development world to all kinds of scientific disciplines, is a major > selling point for many people. This was the case for me (and William), > coming from a world of special purpose mathematical software. Relying on a > mature language with a diverse ecosystem encourages a wider array of > contribution to sage. I will posit that a similar motivator was present for > many of us who come with previous experience in other languages. > > If your software community is not inclusive, you will reject individual > contributions that might be very interesting (and remain unaware of it), > and that pattern will lead to larger collaborations having a hard time > working at the periphery of the core project. This will decrease the chance > of the core project recruiting new contributors. And we are talking about > highly qualified contributions here, contributions that the sage project > really does not want to end in Magma first. For instance, pick the LMFDB or > findstat. How much of their code is written tiptoeing around sage itself, > and if you make an objective assessment should fit better in sage than in > their project? Bear in mind that the software was developed itself already > tiptoeing around sage's core community (which might be unfair, because a > community's tone is often defined by just a few individuals who speak > louder). > > You might ask how origin, genders, lifestyles come in play here. Well, > being inclusive starts simply by being curteous and making people feel at > ease, and in some particular circumstances being "explicit is better than > implicit". It might very well be that a queer person finds the python > community very welcoming (based on objective facts such that one out of > five tracks at pycon was aimed at promoting diversity in the community, or > the diversity of the speakers), that she wants to contribute back, so much > so that she decides to organize a python education summit, where educators > of students of all backgrounds and ages can share tips on how to build a > python pipeline together, one that takes anyone between the age of 5 to the > age of whatever and turns them into a competent enough programmer that the > community is better off from it. Somehow it all works for the better, > because you have to trust individuals that if they like a project they will > contribute to it in a positive way, with their own creativity. > > This pipeline exists, and is actively fostered by the Python Software > Foundation as one of the most important assets of the python ecosystem. > Contrast the shortsightedness of the academic community wrt the leaky > pipeline for instance, with the attitude of the PSF described here. There > is no comparison. > > At the same time, my reflections since pycon have led me to understand that > it would make sense for things to develop the way they have so far. The PSF > has much closer contacts to the corporate world, and it has a much smaller > board (which helps make bold decisions more easily than a decentralised > system of tenured professors). > > How are the corporate world connections important? Well, open source > software is the flagship of Open Innovation, a new and deep trend in > industry that encourages opening up to the world what was considered trade > secrets not long ago (cf. the work of Georg von Krogh, for instance). Open > Innovation makes more business sense if the community that watches those > overtures is wider, because it is then more likely to come up with new > ideas that would have never arisen within closed walls of the company. > Following perfect logical arguments, after some stage the only way to grow > a community is to make it more diverse (in the broad sense described > above), and companies realised that too: promoting diversity also makes > business sense. Now this idea is flowing back to open source software, like > the python ecosystem, and it is only to the credit of the PSF to take this > stance. This is very different from other languages apparently. > > Maybe my perspective of the python community was skewed by the fact that > pycon is a US-centric conference. I would be curious to see how it compares > to EuroPython for those aspects, but will be unable to attend. > > All this is especially true I would think for software like sage, which > aims to be a replacement to the large CAS software companies. Look at all > the outreach efforts that have "Wolfram" in their name. I am not saying > that the sage core community should develop a copy of the whole Wolfram > ecosystem. What I am advocating is to understand that beyond sage there is > a wider ecosystem of people who are devoted to goals around sage (LMFDB, > sage-combinat, findstat, sagemathcloud, the failed sage-explorer,...), > possibly different from yours but that active mutual cooperation would be > beneficial. While 90% of the code of these projects will not belong to > sage, it is important that their extension points do sit in the code and > are thought through, because these extension points welcome creativity and > other innovators to build cool stuff on top of sage, and make it easier for > the core contributors to help them too, with epsilon additional effort. > > Finally, for the specific context of how successful mathematical > communities work together, I would advise anyone to read papers by Ursula > Martin and her coauthors.
In light of all that, what do you think of the Sage mission statement? "Mission: Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab." It's meant to be technically very inclusive, and was something I made up back in 2005. It might be worth revisiting it, especially in light of your remarks about Wolfram outreach above, my own recent push to create something (SageMathCloud), which is certainly different than just "an alternative to Ma's", etc. I'm also very +1 to diversity, reaching out to industry, etc. -- William -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
