Python SIG

[David Malcolm]

I noticed that there's an effort to better organize the various Special
Interest Groups in Fedora:
https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-engineering-services/ticket/2

I noticed that although https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Python
had "[[Category:Language-specific SIGs]]" we didn't have:
"[[Category:SIGs]]" and so we weren't showing anywhere on that page.

I've fixed this, and the page is now at least showing on the list at the
bottom of:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:SIGs

However, we're not in the hand-written list on that page, and I feel
that we should be (hey, Ruby gets a mention, why can't we :) )

Any ideas what the summary info for the SIG should be?  At the risk of
plagiarism, Ruby's says:
"A SIG for people who are interested in improving the state of Ruby in
Fedora. This includes packaging Ruby libraries and applications, setting
and improving standards for packaging them as RPM's and maintaining Ruby
packages for Fedora."

and that might be a good first start, but I'd also include the runtime
as well as libraries and applications - I don't want people to feel that
the runtime is somehow sacrosanct (just more care required!).

How about this:
"A SIG for people who are interested in Python on Fedora. This includes
packaging and optimizing the various Python 2 and Python 3 runtimes
(CPython, Jython), packaging libraries and applications, setting and
improving standards for packaging them as RPM's and maintaining Python
packages for Fedora."
(somewhat copied from Ruby)

I think the various questions on the F-E-S ticket are good ones.  I'm
willing to do some work towards some of that ticket, but any help would
be welcome.

Thoughts?
Dave

[José Abílio Matos]

On Wednesday 17 March 2010 19:36:35 David Malcolm wrote:
>  How about this:
>  "A SIG for people who are interested in Python on Fedora. This includes
>  packaging and optimizing the various Python 2 and Python 3 runtimes
>  (CPython, Jython), packaging libraries and applications, setting and
>  improving standards for packaging them as RPM's and maintaining Python
>  packages for Fedora."
>  (somewhat copied from Ruby) 
I find this a good start (just as you do). :-)

Just to add to the discussion my main interest in this SIG is on scientific 
and/or educational python packages.

What we see, in terms of packaging, in projects like sage 
http://www.sagemath.org/ or in other projects (proprietary) like EPD 
(Enthought Python distribution) or Python(x,y) is that put everything under 
the sun on those packages.

It would be nice to have the free parts in Fedora...

Such as the above statement is written I see these goals there.
-- 
José Abílio

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 03:11:15PM +0000, José Matos wrote:
>  On Wednesday 17 March 2010 19:36:35 David Malcolm wrote:
>  > How about this:
>  > "A SIG for people who are interested in Python on Fedora. This includes
>  > packaging and optimizing the various Python 2 and Python 3 runtimes
>  > (CPython, Jython), packaging libraries and applications, setting and
>  > improving standards for packaging them as RPM's and maintaining Python
>  > packages for Fedora."
>  > (somewhat copied from Ruby)
>  
>  I find this a good start (just as you do). :-)
>  
>  Just to add to the discussion my main interest in this SIG is on scientific 
>  and/or educational python packages.
>  
>  What we see, in terms of packaging, in projects like sage 
>  http://www.sagemath.org/ or in other projects (proprietary) like EPD 
>  (Enthought Python distribution) or Python(x,y) is that put everything under 
>  the sun on those packages.
>  
>  It would be nice to have the free parts in Fedora...
>  
>  Such as the above statement is written I see these goals there.
>  
WRT enthought, they're very interested in getting their software packaged
for individual distributions but don't have any manpower or inhouse
knowledge on how to do that.  If someone were to start working on those
packages, I could pass along contact information and we could potentially
have help from them on changing their packaging over time to address our
needs.

-Toshio

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 03:17:23PM -0400, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>  > Such as the above statement is written I see these goals there.
>  WRT enthought, they're very interested in getting their software
> packaged
>  for individual distributions but don't have any manpower or inhouse
>  knowledge on how to do that.  If someone were to start working on those
>  packages, I could pass along contact information and we could potentially
>  have help from them on changing their packaging over time to address our
>  needs. 
AFAIK, that's been partly done (mayavi2 is packaged under Fedora, I
believe).

I believe that Rakesh Pandit is the one to thank for that work.

I second that assersion though: Enthought is interested in protecting and
selling only the binaries of EPD. Enthought would like the corresponding
software (all open source) to have as much success as possible, and thus
to have high-quality packages on every platform.

Disclaimer: I worked for Enthought (although only a very brief amount of
time, as I am pursuing a career in academia), and I have much personal
interests in the success of the various Enthought-related packages, but
little time for packaging work.

Gaël

[David Malcolm]

On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 15:11 +0000, José Matos wrote:
>  On Wednesday 17 March 2010 19:36:35 David Malcolm wrote:
>  > How about this:
>  > "A SIG for people who are interested in Python on Fedora. This includes
>  > packaging and optimizing the various Python 2 and Python 3 runtimes
>  > (CPython, Jython), packaging libraries and applications, setting and
>  > improving standards for packaging them as RPM's and maintaining Python
>  > packages for Fedora."
>  > (somewhat copied from Ruby)
>  
>  I find this a good start (just as you do). :-) 
Thanks!

I went ahead and added it to the top of our SIG page here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Python#Python_Special_Interest_Group
with some links, though it's definitely improvable.  

I haven't yet added it to the text of:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:SIGs
since I think the text could be better.

>  Just to add to the discussion my main interest in this SIG is on
> scientific 
>  and/or educational python packages. 
This gave me an idea: we could list our particular interests on the SIG
page.  I went ahead and put mine there:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Python#Members

Would other people be up for listing their own areas on that page?


AFAIK we don't have any kind of formal membership, and I think that's a
good thing - I "joined" by adding my name to the list of "Members" on
the page, and subscribing to this list (and telling xchat to autologin
to the IRC channel).

So would it be fair to add something like this to the page:
"If you're interested in Python and Fedora, add your name to this list,
join the mailing list/IRC channel, and get involved"


>  What we see, in terms of packaging, in projects like sage 
>  http://www.sagemath.org/ or in other projects (proprietary) like EPD 
>  (Enthought Python distribution) or Python(x,y) is that put everything under 
>  the sun on those packages.
>  
>  It would be nice to have the free parts in Fedora...
>  
>  Such as the above statement is written I see these goals there. 
I met one of the Enthought developers at PyCon last month.  I found EPD
extremely interesting, if nothing else, as a listing of high-value
Python packages.  I don't know if we have every package in EPD, but it
might be possible to automate comparing Fedora vs EPD:
http://www.enthought.com/products/epdlibraries.php


IIRC Enthought link EPD's build of NumPy against a non-redistributable
Intel mathematics library, which means it's probably faster than the
default, but I suspect the license of the Intel lib is a blocker for us
doing the same in Fedora :(


Thoughts?
Dave