Diving into Django governance: Past, Present and Future

Discover the gouvernance of the Django Software Foundation, what it does and how it's structured through the time.
Find out the people working behind the scenes.What ideas and work are in progress and how people can get involved if they are interested.

Transcript

1. Diving into Django Governance: Past, Present and Future Sarah Abderemane - DjangoCongress JP 2025
2. About me 󰏃 Software engineer 📍 France @sabderemane - sarahabd.com • Django Software Foundation Board member and Vice President • Django Accessibility team member • Co-founder of Djangonaut Space 🚀 2
3. Django governance Past 3
4. History Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL): A leader of an open-source project who resolves disputes and has final say on big decisions • Adrian Holovaty • Jacob Kaplan-Moss DjangoCon 2008 Keynote: Adrian Holovaty & Jacob Kaplan-Moss from Youtube 4
5. Django Software Foundation (DSF) Development of Django is supported by an independent foundation established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. The goal of the Django Software Foundation is to: • promote • support • advance its open-source project 5
6. Django Enhancement Proposals (DEPs) • Documents that specify Django’s governance and major changes • Like Python’s PEPs • DEP 10 specifies the organizational structure and rules for voting etc. • https://github.com/django/deps 6
7. Technical Organisation 7
8. Technical Organisation 8
9. DSF Governance 9
10. Django governance Present 10
11. DSF - Goals The foundation's goals are to: • Support development of Django by sponsoring sprints, meetups, gatherings and community events. • Promote the use of Django among the World Wide Web development community. • Protect the intellectual property and the framework's long-term viability. • Advance the state of the art in Web development. 11
12. Current board of directors • Thibaud Colas, President • Sarah Abderemane, Vice President • Tom Carrick, Secretary • Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Treasurer • Abigail Afi Gbadago • Jeff Triplett • Paolo Melchiorre 12 © 2024 Paolo Melchiorre CC BY-SA “Group photo with (from top left to bottom right) Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Sarah Abderemane, Tom Carrick, Paolo Melchiorre, Thibaud Colas, Catherine Holmes, Abigail Afi Gbadago, Jeff Triplett.”
13. Django Fellows Sarah Boyce (2024-present) Natalia Bidart (2023-present) Former Django Fellows: • Mariusz Felisiak (2019-2024) • Carlton Gibson (2018-2023) • Tim Graham (2014- 2019) • Berker Peksağ (2014) 13
14. DSF working groups • Fellowship • Code of Conduct • Social Media • DjangoCon Europe Support • Fundraising 14
15. DSF teams • Steering Council (formerly Technical Board) • Mergers • Releasers • Accessibility team • Ops team • Security team • Triage & review team 15
16. DSF membership • Individual members ◦ Individual members are appointed to the Django Software Foundation in recognition of their contributions to the Django community. • Corporate members ◦ Corporate membership program designed to give a voice to organizations interested in supporting and sponsoring Django’s continued development. 16
17. DSF membership • Individual members ◦ Benefits ▪ You get to vote in DSF elections ▪ You get access to a private DSF Members forum and DSF private discord channel ▪ The DSF Membership serves as a sort of distributed advisory council for the Board 17 Add QRcode djangoproject.com/foundation/ individual-members/faq/
18. DSF membership • Corporate members ◦ Platinum ($30 000+) ◦ Gold ($12 500+) ◦ Silver ($5000+) ◦ Bronze ($2000+) 18
19. DSF membership 19 • Corporate members ◦ Benefits ▪ Participate in membership and foundation discussions ▪ An organization description on the Corporate Members page ▪ Your logo and link on the fundraising page djangoproject.com/foundation/ corporate-membership/
20. DSF annual budget - income 20
21. DSF annual budget - expenses 21
22. Django governance Future 22
23. What if we had more funds… We could do those things: • Hire a new fellow • Have an executive director • Use tools that helps testing • Increase expertise • … If We Had $1,000,000: What Could The DSF Do With 4x Its Budget? - DjangoCon US talk with Jacob Kaplan-Moss 23
24. Work in progress - Increase fundraising - Increase DSF members and representation of the community in the world - Working groups recently approved: - Online community WG - Website WG - Working groups in discussion between people: - Diversity and inclusion WG - Mentorship WG 24
25. We need people - Improve representation of DSF: more members from everywhere - New/future DSF working groups and ideas - Change organisation to something that represent the community: regional council? - Handle an event related to Django: create/join local meetups, DjangoGirls+ event, small to medium Django event or a regional/continental event as DjangoCon - More active members in the community: more reviewers, more leaders, more contributors, more moderators, more helpers… 25
26. Ready to contribute? 26 👉 djangoproject.com djangoproject.com/ fundraising/ better-simple.com/django/ 2024/12/25/getting-started -contributing-django/ github.com/django/ dsf-working-groups djangoproject.com/c ontact/foundation/ Donate Contribute to code Contact us Contribute to governance
27. ありがとう, Thank You, Merci! 27 Questions? @sabderemane - sarahabd.com