[ZF] Nomination: Aroldo Souza-Leite

[Aroldo Souza-Leite]

I herewith nominate myself as a candidate to the Zope Foundation Board.

My main motivation for stepping forward now is to accelerate the process 
of registering the Zope Foundation as a non-profit organisation in 
Delaware. I read from the Board minutes hat some progress has been made 
in this direction in the course of the last three or four years. But the 
length of time needed for each step conveys the impression that 
difficult communication bottlenecks had to be passed. I am prepared to 
actively support the Chair in taking the steps yet ahead.

As I understand, this nomination is legally possible from my position as 
the representative of a sponsoring ZF member, the GFU Cyrus Cologne. I 
have been maintaining only this position in the ZF lately, not 
activating my personal membership, because I would feel uneasy having 
two votes in one society. If I am making a formal mistake here, please 
someone tell me. I will then look for another way to work closely with 
the Board.

Here comes my electoral speech. Those not interested in Zope community 
politcs can just skip it.

----------- <speech>

It is getting ever difficult to me to recommend the Zope 
platform/library to private software development companies in my 
consultancy jobs. The problem is the delay in the ZF IRS process. 
Potential Zope users in my German business environment often ask for 
detailed information on the owner of Zope. When operating as an 
OpenSource project acquisition supporter in this here Fatherland of 
Definitions, I often need a piece of paper like the PSF IRS certificate 
( 
http://www.python.org/files/psf/records/determination_letter_05May06.pdf 
) in my wallet near my ID card. This is also decisive when I go around 
victimizing capitalits with unabashed demands for good money for events 
and deeds like the PyCologne bar camps ( 
http://lanyrd.com/2012/pythoncamp ). German donors tend to give away 
plenty and are usually selfless when supporting a good cause. But they 
always want to know exactly what is happening behind the scenes. And in 
the past, an uncomfortable part of my career was my involvement in 
community relevant Zope projects heavily financed by Germany business 
lobby societies. Zope the softare always proved unbeatably useful and 
rock solid, but many of those projects were stopped somewhere in the 
middle because of the unfortunate lack of clarity about who and what is 
Zope's proprietor.

In see the IRS issue in the context of establishing the ZF within the 
Python community as an active, influential public charity. This should 
be done with a fair and frank attitude towards Zope Corporation. ZC has 
been so far the main ZF sponsor, financially and otherwise. This should 
be honoured in the process of gaining **de facto** - and not only **de 
lege** - independence from ZC. Whereby Zope Foundation's status as a 
public charity, its prominence as an active part of the Python 
community, and the ZF's absolute legal capacity especially in financial 
matters have priority 1, of course.

I do not see a real conflict of interests between ZF and ZC here, but 
there might have been some diplomatic hurdles in the past and there 
might be some left in the present, hurdles that must be taken with 
momentum and with courage. We must openly agree on the rules of the game 
and then jump.

We must find a sustainable common policy for ZC and ZF that throws a 
maximum of profit for the Python community as a whole (yes, you are 
reading it right: I do mean the **Python** community. Please note that I 
have no authorization from the PSF and that I bear the responsability 
for this alone, but if you suspect that I am acting as a PSF submarine 
in Zope waters, this is probably a good guess.)

Some ZC officials remember me fearfully from archaic battles and they 
know I am not going to make it very easy for them... (is any of them 
hearing this? Be prepared.).

--------------</speech>

Oh yes, I almost forgot, I am here in an election campain, so I should 
expose some of my - rather untechnical - CV. I achieved a 
Universitätsdiplom (something like an antiquated  German master's 
degree) in theoretical Mathematics (Differential Geometry) with a minor 
in Physics at the University of Bonn, summa cum laude. I am a marathon 
runner, usually slow and steady in all things I do, but if asked I can 
take the risk of a sprint uphill once in a while.  Entering old age, a 
pastime of mine is reading Thucydides and Sophocles in the original - 
but this also works only with patient help from my young and brilliant 
tutor of Ancient Greek in Bonn. To help me keep contact with Modern 
Times, some time ago a Maths student of mine payed for some extra 
tuition in natural currency: a smartphone and his consultancy skills in 
handling that gadget. I am doing well. Python and Zope have been 
financing my way of life for about 12 years now.

Zope magic is Python magic. We need more Python community magic in the 
Zope community.

Aroldo.