A Pan Asian Python Society

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Iqbal Abdullah

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Sep 9, 2022, 10:22:05 PM9/9/22
to PyCon Organizers APAC
Hi folks,

So, during my keynote for PyCon APAC 2022 hosted by our TW friends, I
made a suggestion of having a Pan Asian Python Society.

I've written some thoughts down on this document, which all of you are
free to comment on. Please also leave your name and your country if
you do comment, so we know who is talking about what:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WRA78HAFXjv64PMmZbU82MG-E3GClB89p_-RbPGe0iw/edit?usp=sharing

Also, PyCon JP 2022 will be held from Oct 14 to Oct 16 (Oct 14 and 15
is conference proper, and Oct 16 is the sprints day). I know our
friend Youggun from KR is coming, and I would like to invite all
others from APAC to also join us, so we can discuss this further IRL
(in real life).
You can purchase the tickets here: https://pyconjp.connpass.com/event/255827/
Follow PyCon JP here: https://twitter.com/pyconjapan/status/1564817755970293762

PyCon JP Association who is responsible for the conference can arrange
to issue you an invitation letter for visa or travel purposes if
needed.

--
@pyconjapan will be hosting #PyConJP2022 from Oct 14th to Oct 16th 2022.
Follow PyCon APAC here: https://twitter.com/pyconapac

Maurice Ling

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Sep 9, 2022, 11:35:01 PM9/9/22
to Iqbal Abdullah, PyCon Organizers APAC
Hi folks,

Added my comments in the document and here.

  1. Maurice (SG): A Pan-Asian Python Society sounds good but I caution. I presume this is for the organization and management of finances for PyCon APAC. There is no legal need for organization of conferences but it is a different matter with finances. Registering a society is easy; it is the administration that is a problem. For example, it is not difficult to register an association or even a limited liability company in Singapore. However, it requires the several office bearers (for associations) and directors (for companies) to have Singpass (which requires a Singapore IC number or Foreign Identification Number) to administer the entity. This has been an on-going conversation since the first PyCon APAC in 2009 - Creating an entity is fun (as much as creating a human is) but it is the dealing with it (i.e., meetings, AGMs, filing returns, changing signatories, etc; and not to mention addressing various governmental and taxation requirements) that is painful.


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James Ing Wei Tang

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Sep 11, 2022, 2:15:59 AM9/11/22
to mauri...@acm.org, Iqbal Abdullah, PyCon Organizers APAC
I am not keen to deal with regional politics within the community, especially:

India - Pakistan,
Israel - Palestine,
Iraq - Iran,
Iran - UAE,
Fatah - Hamas,
Taiwan straits dispute,
Russia conflict,
The PyCon within SEA,
and many more...

Also I second the idea that Maurice had mentioned, administrative in terms cross countries entity can be difficult in terms of finance.

I am good to have APAC at the moment unless there is a very good reason to move towards so called PyCon Asia. 


Have a good coming Monday.

James



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Yung-Yu Chen

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Sep 11, 2022, 2:37:52 AM9/11/22
to James Ing Wei Tang, Maurice Ling, Iqbal Abdullah, PyCon Organizers APAC
From what I read, the initiative focuses more on the society, rather than the naming.  My take is that we as enthusiasts of Python are willing to enjoy the technology together in the regions we live around, the more the better.  In this regard, I appreciate the vitalization of the community and would love to contribute what I can for us to have more of the joy.  IMHO, naming is less relevant, so both APAC or Asian work good to me and I'd go with the crowd.

Regards,
Yung-Yu


Sammy Fung

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Sep 13, 2022, 10:30:15 AM9/13/22
to Yung-Yu Chen, James Ing Wei Tang, Maurice Ling, Iqbal Abdullah, PyCon Organizers APAC
Hi all,

I agree with Maurice.

I think Iqbal's idea is good but we need more time to study how to make it happen in APAC, for example, where should the organization get registered?

I agree with Yung-Yu that Naming (APAC or Asia) is less relevant because PyCon organisers will form the organisation in the APAC region. These PyCons must be listed in PSF's PyCon list and they think they are a part of APAC/Asia.

Yours Sincerely,
Sammy Fung
President, Open Source Hong Kong.
http://opensource.hk


To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pycon-organizers-apac/A33E594E-2EE6-47B1-9380-4638F61D5C1D%40solvcon.net.

Dylan Jay

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Oct 18, 2022, 2:25:24 AM10/18/22
to PyCon Organizers APAC, mauri...@acm.org, Iqbal Abdullah, James Ing Wei Tang
I think it’s a good point that politics are an issue.
But as PyCon Thailand/APAC found out that is perhaps unavoidable regardless if a more formal foundation is formed.
Leaving that issue up to the organisers to decide I think was not the best way to deal with it as it had implications beyond Thailand and was not really what the organisers signed up to deal with I believe.

I think bringing up the name is a distraction since the issues Iqbal brought up weren’t really about a name but about the advantages of having something more formal.
The reason to have a foundation is to try and do more than we can do as things are now. To help solve future problems.

Some ideas off the top of my head are
- ability to have funds and skills to promote the joint conference to a wider community worldwide.
- have funds and skills to help bootstrap conferences in countries in the region who currently don’t have them. for example Myanmar, cambodia, Laos to name a few.
- have a structure in place to deal with higher level issues like politics
- to have some way to represent our voices within the winder python community. A president of a Asian wide python community holds clout without anyone having to be on a python foundation board. That is not something we have to ask for. We can just create it from what we have already.
- have a more formal membership process and therefore a better definition of which countries are included. I think from these emails we have some very different ideas of which countries make sense to include. Avoiding that issue now delays it but doesn’t make it go away
- a place to trademarks, IP, domainnames and other things that need a place to live. and potentially help owning these for specific countries where non profits are hard to create, such as thailand for example. Potentially even holding money and helping with insurance for specific countries if required too. Even though its single country, linux australia is an example of a single foundation thats helped take a lot of these headaches away from smaller open source communities.

Perhaps Iqbal had more advantages in mind?

There are plenty of models of open source foundations that are cross borders and how finances and other aspects work. 



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