I'd like to announce my candidacy, as of today, for the position of President of The Perl Foundation.
As President, my first task will be institute the creation of a member registration system for Perl developers. While NOT a formal skill-based certification, this membership will allow you to do the following.
1. Support Perl and The Perl Foundation via your annual membership fees. Membership will be set at the following approximate levels (in US dollars)
$50 per year - Registered Perl Student Developer
$99 per year - Registered Perl Developer
$249 per year - Registered Perl Professional
$1990 per year - Registered Perl Partner (company registration)
$9900 per year - Corporate Perl Partner (company registration)
2. Entitle you to place your registration on your CV and website, and entitle you to the use of the Perl Foundation Membership Logo for your membership level, customised with your membership number.
3. Entitle you to an amount, equivalent to your registration fee, for use at your option in The Perl Foundation Ideas Market, a market-based system for harvesting ideas and voting for them based on merit.
Any registered member will be allowed to add an idea to the market. The allocation based on registration amount is in recognition (in particular for the two company levels) of the importance of businesses in the creation of more and better jobs for Perl programmers.
This market will help you to help me guide the development and direction of the TPF itself, and although the TPF will not be bound by the market we will use the market as the basis for areas we should be focusing on.
4. Entitle you a copy (or 10 for companies) of an exclusive Best of YAPC DVD. This DVD will contain a high-quality edited collection of the best and funniest YAPC talks for that year, recorded live at YAPC conferences around the world, and will ONLY be available to registered members.
5. From year 2007, membership will allow you to vote (1 vote per individual, 5 per company) for your favourite from a nominated group of candidates in the annual White Camel Awards.
And from year 2008, membership will allow you to vote in the first annual elections for members of the TPF board of directors.
6. Registered Perl Partners will additionally recieve 2 free tickets (and Corporate Perl Partners 10 free tickets) to any YAPC event for that year in any of the countries in which it is held, to be allocated to your developers as you wish.
The funds raised from the membership program will help in our ongoing efforts to fund exciting new projects via the grants committee, and to support a variety of efforts worldwide.
The creation of this membership system will be the focus my year as TPF President, in the hope that we can harness the world wide attention and enthusiasm of the Perl development community.
Thankyou and I hope I can look forward to your vote in 2006!
Adam Kennedy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now of course, this is an entirely fictional scenario, and I'm _not_ actually putting up my hand for the TPF President role (not this year at least) but it does contain some things I would like to see happen.
I think it's clear that people want some form of official badge as a "serious" Perl developer, even if this isn't a certification-based system.
I think it's clear we need some way for both people and businesses to contribute to the TPF regularly, WITHOUT requiring the TPF to grab your attention year after year. If people are already happy to help you out, why should we make them have to think and decide the next year.
And I think by having people willing to put their money where their mouth is as a Perl developer, we can have a trusted pool of people and companies that can then be drawn from for guidance on what the direction and focus of Perl should be, and give a way for companies that are the ones CREATING the Perl jobs to help provide some leadership on what THEY need to help create even more Perl jobs.
The ideas market is a bit more adventurous, but would mean we can get DIRECT feedback on a day to day basis from the members, and it means that over time people supporting the best and most successful ideas will have an increased influence over the next ideas. A kind of democratic meritocracy, if you will.
It will let people volunteering for the big ideas to get some limelight, while identifying the areas which are important but nobody wants to do, thus pointing out good places for strategic grants, or where a company might find it worth sponsoring a paid developer for a month or two to fix.
But the TPF is a relatively closed organisation, driven by volunteers and merit there is no doubt, but still to some degree by invitation only it would seem.
The leadership would seem to have a strong American focus (and some would say Oregon focus), understandable given it's history certainly, but nonetheless concerning for those of us outside of "the Cabal", who feel we have little chance of participation.
Things happen that might not in a more open organisation.
The previous holder of the Public Relations position was not even aware he held the post for much of his term, and while Allison grew into a much more active and visible President than when she first started, the same cannot be said for our new President, Bill Odom.
Now because I managed to make it to Oregon for the first time last year, I had a chance to meet Bill, and he's a nice guy and quite approachable.
But he has ZERO public presence, and I felt a bit odd at the time in that he was a guy that everyone from Oregon/US seemed to know, but that I'd never even heard of.
He has almost no website, he's released one CPAN module, Win32::ASP, but outside of that I know pretty much nothing, and I'd never even heard of him before I met him. I've never seen him on a mailing list, or IRC, or anywhere for that matter.
And I'm sure, like I would have been if this were the situation last year, there's a lot of people asking "Who the bloody hell is Bill Odom?".
Bill, mate, you are the President, the public face of The Perl Foundation. But not only can't we see your face, nobody that hasn't met you has any idea who you are. No introduction speech, no journal entries, no commentary, nothing.
Just "Bill Odom has been appointed as President", and since then silence for 3 months now. A quarter of your first term is over and you haven't even introduced yourself.
You seem like a great guy, but if there's no way for us to vote and do anything about who the President is, then the people in the worldwide Perl Community that don't know who you are deserve a little better than silence from their appointed leader.
Is that much to ask Bill?
Re:I hope you aren't serious
cog on 2006-03-28T14:47:20
the onyl Perl magazineDoes that have something to do with onions?
:-) Re:I hope you aren't serious
Alias on 2006-03-28T14:54:07
As I said, it's a fictional scenario, but one that (ignoring the details of implementing it) I think many people would like to see.
More participation, more feedback, more opportunity.
As one of the partners of Stonehenge and the publisher of the only Perl magazine, your view is from a position far closer to the action than people on the other side of the world, with little to no access to the North American community.
I personally got more out listening into a stream of Allison from Randal's laptop at one meeting reporting on the previous years updates than I had from the entire previous year viewing from this distance.
I don't suggest 100% of that scenario need be true.
If it can't be done as a guild, then consider it just informal registration.
Or we do take the time to change the structure.
Or we move the parent body to a country that isn't so insanely complex. Who's to say there isn't a solution there somewhere.
For now, I'm not interested in the means, merely throwing up ideas for the end.
If there's then a way to achieve the end that has a suitable means, then we do that.
To address some more specific points, you bring up items about which I have no visibility from outside the cabal.
The TPF has too much money? Where did you find that out, because from out here I had no idea. There's no financials visible since 2003.
Might I suggest a grant to someone to help improve Win32 Perl. I can suggest half a dozen people that would probably put up their hands to take a paid month or two off and help make it more of a first class platform.
If people knew there was too much money, I'm sure they would have suggestions.
What about more marketing? What about the TPF hiring some key developers to work on Perl full time? Would having Audrey or Larry or CLKAO working full time to make Perl better help?
If people WANT to give the TPF money, then why stop them?
I'm not sure what you mean by the YAPC donor base. I'm certainly not suggesting destroying the way YAPC works, just that when a Corporate Partner asked for a ticket, the TPF would pay for it instead of them directly.
This might help some of these guys get to events more. The ones you DON'T see at conferences.
As to the specifics of the White Camel scenario, I doubt a single company could warp the whole vote with 5 votes compared to 1 for individuals. Or we don't have voting in that way. Or the closed white camel "community" sets the nominees, but the members vote.
I don't offer SPECIFIC answers or proposals, I just offer suggestions of a DIRECTION. I leave it up to the creativity of others to suggests ways for things to be done.
Because I would certainly be happy to pay my $whatever dollars for registration, so I don't have to actively remember to donate again each year, and so I get my DVD of all those talks I can almost never get to conferences to see.
And if there's 1000 others around the world that feel the same way, why should we say no to their quarter of a million dollars, and tell them we don't need their help.Re:I hope you aren't serious
brian_d_foy on 2006-03-28T16:26:04
People don't not particpate because they don't have a way to give money. A membership organization is not going to change that.
In reality, charitable organizations will always have to beg for money. You get that by developing personal relationships with the people who give out the money (not just the organization that has the money). As a charity, no one can inure private benefit, which means that your plan turns TPF into a non-charity, which cuts you off from charitable giving.
Changing things to an foreign corporation won't help. You'll still have to register as a foreign corporation in the US, and if you don't follow the IRS's laws on charitable organizations, you end up paying taxes again and cutting off donors.
I don't think there are a thousand people out there willing to give to TPF. They already have a way to do that, and they aren't doing it. There isn't a reason for most people to give money to TPF. That could be differnt, but it isn't. I've never heard a person ask "I'd like to give TPF money, but I just don't know how". It's a non-problem.
None of your ideas are new. I have the advantage of having run Perl Mongers, talking to a lot of lawyers, and dealing with other people running non-profits.
If you really want to run TPF, I suggest you get involved at a lower, administrative side role and learn more about how charities work. I think you'll find that things aren't as simple as having ideas, and that there isn't a big horde of people waiting to give you money.Re:I hope you aren't serious
Ovid on 2006-03-28T18:21:27
The TPF has too much money? Where did you find that out, because from out here I had no idea. There's no financials visible since 2003.
Go to the TPF Web site. On the left side, near the top of the page, is a clearly visible "tax returns" link. Click on that and you'll see our tax returns through 2004 (I've no idea if this year's return has been filed as I don't handle the money).
A little below that link is the Fund Drive Status link. Click on that and you'll see the money we pulled in for last year.
It's all out there for anyone to see. Combine that with our blog and you'll see much of the fruit of Bill's work: pushing hard to make us a more open, accountable organization. Of course, there are lots of internal changes he's been making, too, but all in all, I've been quite happy with him. This has been a lot of work but, as usual, we also get a lot of folks accusing us of all sorts of silly things and we never please everyone.
And I'm not sure what you mean by TPF being "Oregon" Centric. Looking at our (also publicly available) Who's Who list, I see myself and Allison. As far as I know, we're the only ones from Oregon. We are mostly a US organization, though. Slightly over a third are from Europe and only one from the southern hemisphere (that I know of).
Re:I hope you aren't serious
kurt on 2006-03-28T22:04:30
Go to the TPF Web site. On the left side, near the top of the page, is a clearly visible "tax returns" link. Click on that and you'll see our tax returns through 2004 (I've no idea if this year's return has been filed as I don't handle the money).In Adam's defense, the tax returns had only gone through 2003 when he wrote his comment. When I read it, I double-checked to make sure he was right and noticed that the tax returns were only up through 2003. I had the 2004 return in PDF form, but I forgot to post it. So I quickly threw it up on the site.
Anyway, thanks Adam for indirectly reminding me to post that return.
As for 2005, we've finished the year end processing, but we haven't filled out the tax returns yet. Those should be coming soon (assuming I don't forget to post them again). Our filing deadline is on May 15, so we should have the return available in about a month.
Kurt
Re:I hope you aren't serious
Ovid on 2006-03-28T22:12:15
Ah! Thanks for the clarification.
US Non-profits Re:I hope you aren't serious
n1vux on 2006-03-28T19:31:51
Having been on the Board of several US charities under section 501(c)(3) and an officer of one [former Secretary MoP], I endorsebrian d foy's comments regarding non-profit governance. Membership organizations are possibly the most complex , but all non-profit governance in the US is complex. Not only does it depend upon the exact IRS chapter a corporation is registered under (scientific & educational, good works, fraternal, religious,...), but also under which options under the local law of whichever one of the 50+ states/commonwealths/territories in the US in which it is incorporated also matters greatly. Charities in my Commonwealth report annually to the Attorney General (as a public charity) and the Secretary of State (as a corporation), in addition to their annual US IRS (Internal Revenue = tax) reporting requirement. (I don't recall having to file a state Dept.of Revenue report.) I'm not certain it's overly complex, but it is complex, possibly necessarily so, and may be no less complex elsewhere (EU + member-state regulations?). But net-net, re-chartering under a different chapter is impractical at best. Thus, many larger mature organizations spin up one or more parallel arms to meet the multiple purposes -- a Political Action Committee (PAC), a Foundation, a Friends/Supporters of, or a Guild -- with interlocking directorships and financial flows, but legally separate corporations.
What is obvious isn't legal and what's legal isn't obvious. US Tax Courts are not somewhere volunteers want to be, where they may be personally liable as well. [Court in general is a bad place for volunteers.] Good legal counsel -- sometimes available pro bono (free as in beer) -- is essential, as is Officers & Directors Liability Insurance (unless you want to put all your property in your spouse's name).
Note that religious charities and fraternal non-charities often have some simpler rules. (But the recent politicization of religion & vice versa is opening a can of worms here too -- can a Church lose it's tax-exemption by breaking down the Church-State barrier from it's side? Some are suggesting so.)
[Disclaimer: IANAL
... but I worked all too closely with one in non-profit registration & litigation years ago. Volunteers and litigation and a $DayJob mix poorly.]
Uh, that's not clear at all. I hear very little support for certification of any kind from the Perl developers I know.
Re:certification?
jdavidb on 2006-03-28T20:17:13
Agreed. I'm not interested in anything like that.
I'd rather wave a certificate and say I took a class from Randal Schwartz or somebody (which I didn't), as it would have some real meaning. As it is, my resume says far more than any such meaningless certification would say, and my ability to demonstrate that I can do something useful for a potential employer says far more than even that.
I think it's clear that people want some form of official badge as a "serious" Perl developer, even if this isn't a certification-based system.
Something mildly related was in this thread on perlmonks recently.
I would like to see some kind of certification for programmers and some more professionalism in the field in general (particularly after a recent look at some PHP code from the "copy/paste engineering" school of thought.) But, who is going to put that system in place and what is it going to look like?
For starters, you have to consider how long it took professional certification to appear in engineering and medicine. I'm going to take a rough guess and say 2000 years. Maybe 500 if you want to pick nits on either end between the Romans and the Brits -- but I'm no historian. Anyhow, let's just say high-level programming has been going for 30 years. Programming in general is maybe a little older (feel free to explore a brief history.)
Just FYI, I've got a 4-year degree (BS in Engineering) from an ABET accredited university and I passed the 8-hour long Fundamentals of Engineering exam (which costs at least $100 each time you take it.) That gets me an EIT (Engineer In Training) certificate. This is only the first step to becoming a PE (Professional Engineer.) Once you have an EIT, you work under a PE for four years before you can take another exam to become a PE yourself. Once you have PE status, it only counts in one state and you have to maintain your status via work in the field, continuing education, teaching, etc.
Ok, so people are usually not at risk of death when software falls down, but I hope it is clear how huge the difference is between something like Professional Engineer status and "Yeah, I know Pearl." There's currently no way to demonstrate that 4 years of hardcore development trumps 10 years of occasional regex usage. I would really like to see a rigorous test or other certification process which helps make this distinction.
That's not something which should be seen as a huge source of income, and I understand that certification is not really what you had in mind in this post. Membership/dues is a different beast, and I don't think it should be the primary "badge" of whether you are a serious developer. There is certainly value in the pride of backing TPF, but high-quality bumper stickers can cover that.
I guess I'm only saying that you shouldn't try to label it as something other than "I support TPF." Anything else is just trying too hard and a casual investigation will reveal that it is a bought credential.
You know, Bill called me when he found out he would be accepting the job and I told him rather frankly that he was crazy for even thinking about taking the job with this sinking ship and that, aside from the need for transparency, if he could do nothing else it would be to make sure TPF stop treating volunteers and donors like expendable shit found on the bottom of their shoes.
The problem with this organization is not money or a lack thereof. An organization that has no capacity to thank its donors properly or treat its volunteers with dignity has absolutely no business even thinking about the crazy scheme you propose.
And don't you bust on Bill about being quiet....Allison had, what, three years of silence punctuated mostly by focusing on the licensing of Perl6 and Lenzo before her was legendary for not returning email for years. Three months ain't nothing.
The organization is crippled by the same things that cripple other parts of perl. I have a lot of confidence in Bill to do the right thing, but I have been here too long and seen the same things happen over and over again to believe that change can or ever will happen.
Re:*sigh*
KM on 2006-03-30T14:00:40
You forgot to mention one problem which has sometimes plagued TPF. People who are a part of it and do nothing but complain about this and that, that and this and hinder progress. People who say they will do things, then don't come through. I think I'm still waiting for a promised newsletter from you from back in '02 to put on the TPF website.
Allison always returned my emails on TPF issues. Lenzo always returned my emails on TPF issues. In fact, I think everyone has. Maybe it was selective silence.
As someone who has been "within" TPF for some years now, I think it's very tiring hearing people bitch and moan, but not do anything. Then, when they say they will.. don't. Volunteering is a thankless and time consuming not-for-pay-or-fame job. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback, but more difficult to be pro-active and fill the gaps and holes being complained about.
Isn't it time to stop flinging poo at TPF? I know as someone who is tired of seeing more poo flung than flowers, I think it is.Re:*sigh*
Alias on 2006-03-30T14:16:02
Most of your efforts, community participation and comments predate my entry to the Perl community, so I'm afraid can't relate as well as others.
I just wish sometimes you would articulate your complaints with a little less pesimism, and a little more clarity. Behind the venom I've always you to have good ideas, and so I thank you for the comments. Maybe it IS a crazy idea, it _was_ pretty late, and I _was_ essentially pulling ideas out my ass to see what might pollinate from them.
The feedback from this, and in private emails, have been interesting.
Allison was definately starting to improve towards the end, and I hope others can learn from her that the members of "the Perl community" extend further than the people you happen to talk to personally, or in IRC.
And I certainly don't consider it "busting on". We spoke about this at OSCON, and I consider it more of a nudge, albeit done in the public eye given the nature of the position as primarily the interface between the public and the organisation.
If I was bitching about the TPF seriously, I'd be giving a rant of an entirely different kind, researched, with details, and a preparedness to actually back it up. And in both my physical locality, and availability, that would be inappropriate.
So for now I'll just stick to writing Parse::Perl, improving the quality of Perl tools, writing an refactoring Perl editor, bringing Win32 up to a first class platform, scaling up CPAN Testers, looking after PAUSE permissions, maintaining half a dozen modules other people wrote, and trying to get some real work done.
I'll get back you on The Perl Foundation after I've finished those.
(and since people seem to be jumping to conclusions again, that's not a critique of our contribution. I know what you do, and thanks again)
Naturally, he has tried to keep this a private matter over the past few months. Though perhaps I should have spared him the anguish, I did mentioned to him that some people have been asking what's going on. So, he decided that some kind of communication was necessary. As a result, he asked me to post this here. More thought will be put into other forms of communication of the situation, but please bear with us. It is a difficult thing to address with sensitivity and respect to everyone involved.
Alias and I have been in private communication over the past week on this topic, so mainly my reply here is for others who have been reading the thread and have had an interest. Again, I wish I had a better way to communicate the information. Before (and if) a larger-scale message is crafted and distributed, I want to confer with Bill to make sure that he's comfortable with whatever that may be.
Cheers,
Richard
