Hi folks, The topic of Sage joining the NumFOCUS [1] organization was raised in the recent thread [2] about the SageMath Foundation. When I first started working on Sage I was frankly surprised that it wasn't already affiliated with NumFOCUS, along with many other projects on which Sage is built including IPython/Jupyter, Matplotlib, NumPy, SciPy, SymPy, Cython, etc. Sage would fit right in, but I guess just nobody ever took the initiative.
I believe that Sage should be represented as part of the NumFOCUS family of projects, and that it *may* be beneficial to the project, especially in terms of long-term sustainability. I have set up a mailing list at sagemath-numfo...@googlegroups.com [3] for the purpose of discussing a possible membership application to NumFOCUS for Sage, just in order to keep noise off of sage-devel for anyone not interested in the subject. It's a closed group for now but anyone may join. Please send follow-ups there if you are interested in helping with this or adding your perspective (if you are against it somehow please raise your concerns there too). # What is NumFOCUS? In short, it's a US-based 501(c)3 charitable organization that exists to provide legal and financial support for open source projects focused on or around open science and scientific data analysis, numerical projects, and things like that. I think there's no hard-and-fast rule for determining what projects fall under the NumFOCUS umbrella--the organization's leadership makes those calls, and it's kind of a "you know if you see it". I believe Sage undoubtedly falls under that umbrella. To quote the official mission statement: > The mission of NumFOCUS is to promote sustainable high-level programming > languages, open code development, and reproducible scientific research. We > accomplish this mission through our educational programs and events as well > as through fiscal sponsorship of open source scientific computing projects. > We aim to increase collaboration and communication within the data science > and scientific computing community. # What could NumFOCUS do for Sage? As discussed in the SageMath Foundation thread, through that foundation the SageMath project already has at least one legal entity through which we can receive donations and disperse payments from those donations. So that, as a bare minimum, already exists for Sage. However, I see some other possibility benefits: 1) Free exposure--NumFOCUS's community has a number of members both in terms of projects and individuals. News about Sage would reach a wider audience, for example, through NumFOCUS's newsletter and their presence at events, etc. 2) Fosters cross-pollination between affiliated projects--Sage already benefits enormously from many of the other projects that are already affiliated with NumFOCUS. I listed a few examples above. But through this affiliation we might get exposed to other projects, or other projects may be exposed to Sage, in ways that will allow us to discover new opportunities for collaboration and integration.* 3) Financial support--this is the big one. NumFOCUS might be able to provide us anywhere from large grants (such as supporting part- or full-time developers) to small one-off grants such as limited development efforts, events (e.g. sponsoring a SageDays), or purchasing hardware and other computing resources (a major need for Sage). # How do we become affiliated? There are two broad types of project membership in NumFOCUS: "sponsored projects" [4] and "affiliated projects" [5]. The difference, as I understand it, comes mostly down to level of financial support. To become an affiliated project we would have to meet only a subset of the requirements for sponsored projects, which I believe Sage could meet pretty easily. However, it comes with no guaranteed financial support. But it *does* allow us to apply for small, one-off grants for Sage (e.g. Astropy won a small grant once to purchase some Mac-mini build machines). For sponsored projects there is more obligation, and they fall under two sub-categories: "Comprehensive Model" and "Grantor-Grantee Model". Under the "Comprehensive Model", NumFOCUS would basically become the sole entity handling legal and fiduciary responsibilities for the project. Basically it becomes like our legal guardian. I don't believe that would be appropriate at this time for Sage, especially given that we already have the SageMath Foundation in such a role. Though it's a possibility if we ever lose that (e.g. we lose William Stein, or William loses UW). Under the "Grantor-Grantee Model" we would be straight up applying for a grant with some specific purpose and funding target. This comes with the usual responsibilities of being a grantee, such as using the funds for the purposes they were requested, and making regular reports to the grantor, etc. In Sage's case, if we did something like this, NumFOCUS would likely pay money to the SageMath Foundation, which would then be responsible for its dispersal and tax liabilities, etc. This might be useful, especially if we can come up with some concrete goals for a grant application. It could be something as simple as funding development time. Sage right now only has one former "role" as far as I know, which is release manager. And it's a lot of work and responsibility, which we might be able to get some part-time funding for to keep it worthwhile for the release manager (i.e. Volker). Another possibility might be concrete plans for development of new features in Sage, such as much-needed improvements for undergraduate math. I'm just throwing some ideas out here to get the mental gears turning--we can discuss that more on the mailing list. For starters, I think as a bare minimum, we should apply to make Sage an affiliated project. It's not clear to me if we can "upgrade" from an affiliated project to a sponsored project at a later time. I can't imagine why not, but it might also be something worth getting clarification on. Regards, E * For example, I only really found out about the nteract project through the NumFOCUS mailing list. I knew it *existed* but not much beyond that. I'm now thinking it might make a great starting point for development of a "native" desktop application for Sage, a project I hope to pursue at some point... [1] https://numfocus.org [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-devel/sGFOYBeEq-Q/mBMCMtJ_CgAJ [3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sagemath-numfocus [4] https://numfocus.org/sponsored-projects [5] https://numfocus.org/sponsored-projects/affiliated-projects -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
