Transcript: Read The Docs - Eric Holscher

I'm Carlton Gibson joined us over by Will Vinson.

Hello, Will.

Hi, Carlton.

And this week we've got with us Eric Hulsha, who's um read well, most famously of Read the Docs.

Eric, thank you for coming on the show.

Yeah, thanks.

You've got um we always ask, we always start with the sort of backstory and how people got into Django, and that's kind of the birth story of Read the Docs as well.

So perhaps you could, you know, run through the you know the backstory.

What's your you know your origin story?

I feel like I used to have this pretty pretty well tuned, but it's it's like fading into the past each year.

Um, but yeah, no, I I kind of learned Django in college.

Uh so I was doing a CS degree, uh, and but they didn't really teach uh Python or Django.

I kind of actually knew Pearl uh going into school and then just was like, oh, I want to do some web stuff, maybe beyond CGI, and so kind of learned Django.

I actually kind of downloaded the the documentation as a PDF and took it on like a a family vacation or whatever, so I had something to read on the plane.

No, no, it was like on a laptop or whatever that weighed probably like eight pounds.

Um, and then yeah, I just kind of learned it, used it for my senior project in college, and then kind of out of university, uh, applied at the uh Lawrence Journal World there in Lawrence, Kansas, uh for a job.

And so then really kind of got got deep into the Django world uh out there where it was created uh at in Kansas.

So yeah, I was there for a couple years, went to the first Django Con, did all that kind of stuff.

So it was really kind of did learned it in school, but then kind of really kind of got got deeper into the community there in university and and moved on uh you know into my first job.

Let's get let's go with read the docs.

Let's get let's get the headline out of the way.

Like so what how how did read the docs come up?

What is tell people what read the docs just in case they don't know, but then how did that come up and what was what was the origin of that?

So I mean read the docs really what it does is makes documentation hosting easier.

So I was starting to write some open source projects, starting to put some docs together, and I think I had like a cron job running on my server that like pulled down the git repo every hour and ran make HTML or whatever, you know.

Like that that was like deployment is like this this cron job.

And so we're like, hey, this is like a piece of technology, like webhooks have been a thing for a few years now.

Like we we've kind of built the the plumbing to make the web a little more programmable.

And that was really the core insight and still the core kind of concept, right?

Is that you know, docs should rebuild automatically on push, that should all be kind of tied together.

I mean, obviously now we have you know pull request notifications, you know, preview builds, all that kind of stuff.

But back then it was really just that whole concept of building immediately on commit rather than some background process.

Um, and so that's what Read the Docs does.

And then the the core of that concept was really, you know, the Django Dash was a 48-hour coding competition, and we were just able to kind of take that that core insight and build it in 48 hours, right?

It's like build a webhook receiver from GitHub, you know, pull down the Git repo.

Like the the core of that's pretty simple.

And so that was what was so attractive for a a coding competition is we were able to kind of put together that, you know, very basic proof of concept in in a weekend.

So that was kind of the origin of the project as well.

So in the if you know, if you read if you read a blog post about how to build a Python package, it's like, well, do docs and you know, read the docs.

That's kind of cool, no.

He's someone I know from Lawrence, but then I know he's one of the maintainers of Django Packages, and actually think Django Packages was created uh Danny and Audrey um during a dash.

Like it's a pretty cool kind of you know confluence of of events.

Okay.

So it's because it's it's everything, right?

Uh there's a couple different metrics.

I I think we're doing what is it, half a billion page views a year now?

Something something in that.

Is that internet scale?

So 2021 we did 700 million, uh, and that number kind of keeps that's up from 580 the year before.

Uh so 2022 we'll definitely probably be doing over 750 uh million page views.

Um, and that is that is actual page views, that's not like requests, because each you know each page view has lots of requests associated with it.

I believe that's actually a Google Analytics number.

Uh and so that's under counted as well.

We you know, we respect do not track and don't inject it if you have that in your browser, all that good stuff.

Um so yeah, I mean, probably closer to a to a billion page views.

Um and

And like how is that doable?

It doesn't seem sustainable.

So how how how is that how is that managed?

We're we're down to six at the moment because we did staff up a little bit.

We got a Chan Zuckerberg grant uh for the last couple years.

Um, and so we were able to have have a little bit more more staffing uh from the money there.

But yeah, so the the business itself, uh like I said, there's six people working on it full-time at the moment, and that's all self-funded.

Um and so about half of that money comes from advertising with ethical ads, which I know you talked to David about a little bit uh a couple years ago.

And then the other half is we do have kind of a private uh hosted version.

Uh so companies or or people with kind of public SAS docs that you know don't want ads and want better support and some you know auth features, that kind of stuff.

Um they're able to pay kind of for our our private hosting as well.

So similar to GitHub and all these other things, right?

The kind of free for open source paid for paid for private.

What's the what's the USP for read the docs for me?

Why should I why should I use read the docs?

GitHub pages doesn't do build previews, doesn't do all that kind of stuff.

Uh and you can do all, you know, if you want to maintain like hundreds of lines of YAML and Python scripts and whatever, you can kind of hack it all together.

But the nice thing with read the docs, right, is it's all integrated, it's all supported.

You have somebody that'll actually respond to your email.

Um, and then yeah, the big thing is that kind of integration with building and deploying.

And so we have a lot more hosting features, right?

With GitHub pages, you you basically are just here's some HTML on the internet.

Uh, you don't have any of the stuff we do.

We do search indexing, we do all that kind of stuff.

So it's a much more kind of fully integrated solution.

But there's definitely people out there that if you want full control over it, right, you can hack hack it all together a million different ways uh yourself.

So there's a a wide range of of deployment uh realities in the world.

Oh, of course.

And I mean it it's gonna be more likely to break.

And then when it breaks, you have nobody to call, right?

That's that's the big thing.

Uh, you know, I do think our support really sets us apart.

You know, you you send an email and almost always within you know four to six hours you're getting a reply with people who actually know what they're talking about.

Okay.

You've had this growth.

So looking back on it now, because how many years has it been?

It's been it's been quite a few years since you 12, I think I believe.

Yeah, 20 2010, I believe, is when we started it summer 2010.

You're not trying to profit maximize per se, so deciding to add ads, and then that gets to ethical ads, which I think would be good to talk about again, because that was two years ago.

And to me, that's really cool.

Like Jeff and I have talked about Django packages.

If he does ads, he wants to do ethical ads.

Um, I guess a loaded question of like what was that journey like where you've got growth, but then you go, oh, but costs are going up and we don't want to just spam up this thing that we that we have.

Yeah, and I I mean I've I've talked a little bit about this over the years, um, but definitely, you know, I viewed advertising as kind of the the last option.

Uh we we tried, you know, there's all these things on on open source, how to fund it.

You know, you can do these donation drives, you can do these support contracts that don't actually get anything, but like it's a way to back channel money from corporations or you know we can do contracting training all this kind of stuff and and I I have a blog post which we can probably put in the show notes but really like we tried a lot of these other models and at the end of the day they they all distract they either you know bring in almost no money so like donations lots of people have tried donations and it's the you know you look at people's GitHub sponsors and it's like $32 a month or whatever

and it's like yeah that's that's not going to sustain someone for a you know full-time team working on this.

And so yeah really advertising we kind of came to after trying other things and what I really love about it is it the incentives are aligned to working on the product right you get more users you get more people using the product and you get more revenue and it's not a distraction right you make the product better and that leads to more revenue directly whereas so many other ways of monetizing open source it's kind of this distraction where you're like oh we're gonna do this like side business but not actually work on the core product um and so I do that's one of the big things that I love

about advertising and then to your point right like we are providing a service to the open source community to our users and if we start just putting incredibly intrusive ads people are going to leave right so there's this tension where we feel that that we need to kind of not add tracking not kind of add to the the data detritus in the in the universe um and so that was kind of the the concept behind ethical ads was kind of this you know no tracking we only base uh the ads the ad

targeting is all done based on the content of the pages so we actually you know parse the HTML that we're you're looking at uh and actually kind of were able to target ads right if you're looking at a Django documentation page we can put a put a Postgres database ad on it or you know whoever else wants to target Django developers we don't have to follow you around the internet and see that you're reading Django content for for months on end.

And if you talk to you know Google or whomever their only advice is bigger ads more highly placed.

So it really takes not just restraint but yeah discipline to say I'm valuing this product because in the short term yeah the money's gonna go up but you can't always like put a dollar amount on the experience of users right but if over time they say oh it's just filled with ads you've lost it.

So anyways I I'm very in admiration that you've pulled that off because I know as much as people say they want to do that, the realities of running a business it's very difficult to do and requires thinking in 12 year plus terms to pull that off you know and no investors too or not investors who aren't pushing you on that.

Yeah no I if we were venture backed right there would be someone who would definitely be like you know just put another ad in there and you get more revenue right it's a real it's a real easy solution.

It's a it's a very slippery slope and and similarly like running the business as well right like we there are certain advertisers that will not advertise with us because they can't inject tracking.

And and that's not all nefarious right some of that is fraud some of the I mean the the ad ecosystem is a mess like I don't I don't fault advertisers for wanting to know where their ads are running right like once you like put your ad into the ad tech machine I would be terrified personally.

Whereas like I I have no idea where this is going to show up am I going to be on some news expose because my ad is running next to some alt-right content like who knows um and so you know the the ability to run a network that's invite only that's you know like we know where all the ads are going and you know where they're going right we're not it's not this algorithm where it's just could go show up on any page.

And then similarly as a as a publisher right you don't have random ads like if somebody was just browsing shoe ads and they come to your site they're not gonna see a shoe ad with ethical ads right they're gonna see something tech related based on the content.

And so that's the other big win right is not having that kind of cross cross pollination, cross contamination of of the kind of rest of the world into our ecosystem, right?

Like it's really scary but on both sides as an advertiser where your ads are going and as a publisher what is showing up on your site.

Go ahead

It's because I want to know that when you click my you know I want to be able to allocate my money to that click or to that to that view.

How how can I measure that without any of the tracking?

But it does allow people to actually you know they understand like where the traffic is coming from and what is performing effectively but they don't have any information about the publisher site basically right so they they don't kind of have that yeah that the data doesn't cross from the publisher to the advertiser it's just basically the advertiser's data that they're able to track on the back end of the click if that makes sense.

And so you've got you've obviously got like um a current setup but it must have evolved over time.

So what what's your kind of um guiding principle?

Like how do you you know when a new suggestion comes up what do you just run that through the how it tastes check or you like

to do X.

Do we do we use that as part of our ad platform?

I mean that I'm trying to think of a particular example

But then we do we don't have like a no crypto policy right we do kind of exercise judgment where it's like okay if you're building like a thing that looks like a real product like we're happy to take ads for that but like we do and similarly for for publishers as well right there's definitely some publishers who were like definitely not like that is whatever you're doing over there like we don't want to be a part of it.

And so I guess that's that's where that kind of comes in the most most frequently um and then in in read the docks land as well there's definitely a little bit of that um but not not quite as much but around you know censorship and uh you know the question of like hosting Russian content all that kind of stuff uh has been has been very relevant uh uh recently and so I do think there's a lot of interesting questions there that are that are becoming more and more relevant to to people in open source.

So yeah

to get too deep into the politics of it but

So um perhaps to change um just aspect slightly sure can we can ask about Sphinx because you're still very much involved in the Sphinx world and I I you know I love I love Sphinx.

I use use it um

What I was going to ask is like um Sphinx is quite old and mature and it's so it's both got the superpower but also the craft and great a

Yeah no I I think the the biggest kind of exciting thing is definitely the kind of the quality of the markdown support uh that has been built for it.

So this is actually also CZI uh money.

This is the executable books project uh and they're the ones who built JupyterBook and they also built Mist which is like we we originally tried to do recommon mark which is you know basically pulling markdown content and generating in a DocuTils AST.

So basically just that that first step where you actually take the source from disk and turn it into something in memory basically being able to have markdown and RST both get turned into the same in-memory AST.

And so we did a a version of that originally but they didn't have any funding and it kind of started to get a little cruft and it was it was a lot of work to maintain.

And so it was really awesome that CZI was able to kind of fund that work.

So they actually had some full-time people working on it for multiple years.

And so the markdown support within the Sphinx ecosystem has gotten really good.

And so I think that's probably the most you know that's the the biggest impediment that I think a lot of people have in terms of adoption or selling it with inside their or within their company.

Well you

Right.

ary design decisions in RST.

And so I really love kind of that that mist is able to kind of bridge that gap right where you're able to take markdown you're able to introduce the complexity so people can still use Sphinx features you can have a talk tree you can have all that kind of stuff in your markdown uh and have it all kind of be pretty pretty native but then yeah it's all it's all just markdown at the end of the day.

Because I want we wanted to ask about that but then there's a whole host of other things to ask you about um yeah I mean I I think the the big

Right.

And so even

So we actually contributed the Sphinx tutorial uh for the longest time Sphinx didn't actually have a tutorial uh and so that was one of the things we were able to do with our grant same with read the docs actually we didn't have our own tutorial for the longest time and so so with that money we were able to kind of contribute that to the Sphinx ecosystem and we were really able to kind of dig a lot deeper into that relationship.

Historically we've we've helped you know we put a PR in here and there but we're not super involved uh with the development and so that grant money really did allow us to delve a little deeper into that uh then unfortunately we applied for a a kind of a more a larger Sphinx specific grant uh and that actually wasn't accepted by CZI so that was we were really hoping to be able to kind of start to build a little bit more in the ecosystem one of the big there there's a lot of really wonderful extensions for Sphinx that nobody knows about and that kind of like that

ecosystem management I think is a huge missing piece.

Testing those across releases, you know uh Pradian who's done some wonderful work with the Furo theme uh I think that's one of the other really exciting uh things lately is the Furo theme has become a really really wonderful version of a Sphinx theme that's pretty modern.

And so that's probably the other exciting thing but he's also worked on SphinxThemes.org which actually gives you like a fully rendered list of all the themes with a mobile view and a dark mode and all that kind of stuff as well.

I'm just thinking you know Django has no relationship with them and yet these things you've mentioned funding for docs you know all these other things um you know we're so Django itself we I mean listeners know we go on about this we're about to have the JetBrains promotion tomorrow um June 1st so they this will come out I think a week after but Django is sort of uh makes enough to do what it needs to but in terms of having a docs fellow having more tutorials having accessibility all these things um we

haven't been able to sort of tee that up and identify sources of funding outside of Kickstarters or putting ads on the site which we don't want to do you know we had like carbon ads to speak of one you know they're for you know folk uh vertical focused on tech and like VueJS just redesigned their docs and it's in the sidebar and you know carbon helpfully sent us a thing saying hey your sidebar would look great with carbon ads and you know we could do that um but anyway just just

I mean Django has gotten grants from frankly random um foundations

so I I send that over to you as you know what can Django take from your experience at the the larger organization dealing with these issues.

Sure.

Yeah please go ahead

So that that is the big difference between us is is we're actually saying no to those advertisers and losing that revenue.

Yeah and so that's that's definitely you know I I highly respect carbon I think they do a wonderful job like they do a lot of really great work in the ecosystem.

BSA is I believe bootstrapped uh by sell ads which is their parent company so a lot of respect I I respect them a lot as a competitor because they have a wonderful product that we're trying to compete with.

But yeah I do just want to note I think everybody a lot of people have the understanding that carbon has the same approach to privacy that we do and that is that is not the case.

So um but to to move on from that

I think that's you know important.

So um yeah maybe like down the line you get to that scale and it's like oh okay it's the same issues but how do I how do I handle it and be different.

Like Google is very easy to compete against however carbon actually is a a great product and so I do think that I I envy the uh the competition with Google because uh yeah so I don't know if that answers your question but I I do think that you know we have a a harder time differentiating because there are other people providing a similar user experience uh for advertising and so and carbon does a great job with that like I do as a as a competitor they are a hard one to compete with because they do a great job.

So I I do think that DuckDuckGo yeah maybe had it's it's easier to come compare and contrast with Google.

Well I guess because it's not just it's not just that the the privacy thing it's that you know Google you have to scroll down a full page to see an organic result whereas DuckDuckGo isn't there yet.

Whereas I guess you know a sidebar thing could look the same for carbon versus ethical ads even though under the hood it's quite different.

I mean you've you've been very active in you know I've followed you for ages talking about open source funding and you you half talked about it before.

I mean what you know is that it seems like it's the it's the Gordian knot.

Like how do we how do we resolve this?

Is it resolvable?

Like yeah.

Like I I in particular love that they're funding nuts and bolts.

So much grant funding is is like Kickstarter, right?

It's like, hey, we're gonna build a new shiny thing.

We want we want the shiny thing, you want to fund the shiny thing, and you're gonna put the shiny thing on your website, and so like and then it's like, oh, we're just spent all our time building the shiny thing, and like our like CI has been broken for three months, but like look at this new feature or whatever, you know.

And I love that CI has or CZI has really kind of embraced that you know, this money needs to go into maintenance, it needs to go into to the stuff that's not sexy.

Uh and I I really love that aspect of the program and I I really respect that.

Um, the the hard thing with Django is is read the docs is heavily used in the scientific ecosystem, and CZI, that's really their mission.

They're funding scientific research, right?

So we were able to basically say, hey, look, Jupyter, NumPy, X-array, you know, like these core scientific mild like ecosystem projects are using Read the Docs, they're using Sphinx.

So this money is going to be infrastructure funding for science.

Um, and so that was really how we were able to get that grant money.

And so while there is a lot, a lot of money in that ecosystem, scientific stuff.

There's the Ford Foundation, uh, there's you know the Sloan Foundation, there's a a lot of money around grants, you know, in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Uh NASA just announced a big program.

Uh, I know Europe, the US government is doing a lot more work around this funding, but a lot of it is focused on that science work.

Uh, and so that was kind of how we were able to kind of sneak in, sneak in that that funding mechanism, right?

Is because our our tooling is heavily used in the scientific ecosystem.

I think Django probably has a little bit of a harder sell uh there.

But yeah, I think that's one of the goals with our with our working group, right?

When I joined the PSF board, kind of my big goal was funding, and I actually worked to kind of I I kind of got that original Moss grant from Mozilla over the over the line with the PSF.

And that was really the first big grant that we were able to get and show success from.

And that really kind of snowballed, right?

It's once you have success, you can sell more success, right?

You're like, hey, look at this money and look what it got us.

And that's that's the core thing, right?

Is being able to kind of tell that story.

So you go to the next funder, which is CZI, for example, with some of the PIP improvements, and you're like, look what we did with this Mozilla money.

Now we can get the CZI money.

And then actually with the CZI money, they've been able to then actually go towards private corporations and say, Hey, Facebook, you worry, you're worried about, you know, like supply chain?

Hey Google, you worried about supply chain?

Like, give us money.

And so then they're able to, you know, then bring in a you know hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars of private money to work on that kind of core infrastructure.

Uh, and but it really is kind of this snowball.

And that was that was kind of the theory that we were working on uh back when we first started applying for grants.

Um, but that's really kind of what's what's been able to be executed there.

And so the the goal, you know, we kind of put that together and then I I stepped down from the board.

Uh, and then I did actually start working on the the project funding working group, which was to try and kind of bring bring that knowledge of funding into the ecosystem a little bit more widely.

Um, and I'd say we're medium successful at that.

Um, but it it is really like there there is a lot of money out there, and you but grant grant funding is a whole different thing.

But I do think having that longer term vision of like, you know, you can't just rely on grant funding.

Like there needs to be some kind of longer runway.

And and in some ways, because the money is so big, I mean, I I think it's easier for Mike, you know, Mike Microsoft or some of these places, it's much easier to write a million dollar check than a hundred thousand dollar one because just the logistics of it.

And in terms of or as I see the ecosystem, on the one hand, you have the PSF and all this work that's been done, so you can point to all these things and say, Yeah, we have we did a follow-up report.

And the other, and then there's Django, and then kind of at the bottom end, maybe it's Django Rest framework where Tom Christie can say, Hey, it's just me.

This might go away unless you do something.

And Django is kind of in the middle where we don't have the resources to fully fund what grant payers need, right?

They need someone to cult to write the grants and do the follow-up, and we don't really have that yet.

And at the same time, we're not going away anytime soon.

Um, so it sort of has us treading water uh financially, which maybe is fine because we're, you know, keep pumping out res uh releases, but there's things we're not doing.

Because really, really what Tom is selling is a developer that works on your core product dependency for like pennies on the dollar.

Because that that's basically the pitch, right?

It's like, hey, your like whole back end of your website is built on DRF, your mobile app is all API driven by DRF.

Like, you want to see that continue to improve.

You want that dependency to get better and better.

And by giving us $500 a month, if you know, five 50 other companies give us $500 a month, you all get the same product.

You get a full-time developer working on this release for, you know, or not even that much.

I mean $50 a month, $100.

I'm I did the math wrong on that.

But yeah, like that that's really the narrative that that I think DRF is is working within.

And I think that's super compelling, uh, personally, because I I find that kind of that business case, right?

I do think with grant funding, uh, with any kind of private corporate funding, right?

The the PSF is getting money because like supply chain security is a big deal.

And like it's still a a fraction of the money they should be getting.

But it it's still, you know, they're they're solving that core business, business need.

And I I think that's really the big thing, right?

Is grant funding, you know, private donations, it's still it's still sales.

You you still have to kind of be solving a problem that that organization needs to be needs solved.

Um, and I do think that's somewhere where Django struggles a little bit, right?

Is your and and read the doc struggles in this way sometimes as well, is like you're you're almost too foundational.

Um, but then it's also yeah, you you're not at the project life cycle where the new shiny thing is like a super obvious like Django migration kickstarter, obvious shiny thing.

Yeah.

So I'm a hundred percent convinced that if we go, you know, if we say, hey, do you use Django?

Do you use Django?

Do you use Django?

You do, oh brilliant.

But who in the D in the Django community has got that time and um skill set to go out there and make those those fundraising calls?

Nobody.

You know, there's people contributing to the framework, there's people you know working on it, but that sales job is entirely distinct.

It's a it's a totally different skill set.

I mean, the fact that Read the Docs now has full-time employees no one outside of the a very small number of people knows how Django is actually structured, and why should they?

But it's it makes it hard to, you know, DRF, you can say, oh, it's it's Tom.

I mean, of course it's Tom and Carlton and others, but it's made, you know, it's that's easier to think about.

Like Django does seem this like a morphous thing, it doesn't seem like it's going away, and it seems harder to just to to know and care why things are happening.

This um so yeah, it's it's it's almost a branding problem.

I almost think if we on the website described how it's true, like on the homepage or something more prominent and said, hey, this is the entire budget for Django is basically $200,000 a year.

Like um there's

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the fact that I can go to the Django project website and not see a logo of a sponsor is a is a failure.

Because the the big thing I've also learned, like with ethical ads, the biggest revenue generation, the biggest awareness we have is the ads, right?

So by highlighting your sponsors, you're showing that you have a sponsorship program.

And like there's the thing on the sidebar, right?

That's like some random Django developer gave us like $2 and is like, okay, great, like I can give Django $2.

That's what you're telling me.

But if I went to the Django Project website and there was like a huge Google logo at the bottom, and it was like top-tier sponsors, I'd be like, oh, like that's a thing.

I I want my company logo there.

Maybe I'll email my manager or whatever.

But I I do believe increasing the visibility, it's it's very like it's antithetical to a lot of what developers think about in the world.

But like increasing the visibility of sponsorship actually leads to more sponsorship.

Which I mean, once you think about it, it makes sense.

Yes, like yeah, nobody in the developer community is like, I'm gonna put a PR together to put the sponsor logos on the web page.

I mean, Carlton and I've had many discussions.

I mean, that is the obvious easy thing to do is to like Vue.js, you know, have have the sponsors instead of buried on some page no one can see somewhere on the homepage, and then just put, you know, instead of a random person, have some prominence for a certain tier, put to the sidebar.

Um, but getting, you know, as you know, communicating a financial need when it's not like you're gonna run out of money tomorrow, but you kind of do need it.

Like as treasurer of Django the last three years, like I would like us to have more than less than a one-year runway if something happened.

You know, that's not great, actually.

Um I

Like the PSF is using our hosted ad platform with ethical ads to put sponsor logos on every PyPy sidebar or PyPI.

Like every time you go to a PyPI project in the sidebar, there is a logo for a sponsor.

And if you click on that, it goes to the page with sponsorship.

Yeah.

Um and that is really them, them, they're working with us and work with them to promote the visibility of their sponsors to get more sponsorship and to provide value, right?

I I do think the the idea of having your logo on the PyPI package index is uh is valuable to sponsors.

Like that is a thing when I go to my boss and they're like, wait, why should we give Django money?

It's like, well, because we use it, obviously, because we're good people, but like the good people argument like does not sell.

Like people don't people love being good people, and so they'll give 10 bucks to like some charity, you know, once a year.

But like if you actually want to get companies to engage with you know five, six figures, like you need to give them that visibility and you need to give them something they can sell, right?

They they need to be able to justify it when they go to their their boss, right?

It's like, what's the cool screenshot I can send to my boss in an email that's like, hey, I'm so glad we did this deal.

Look at all the value we're getting.

Right.

Well, that's the I mean, that's literally I mean, the issue for Django is we have Carlton three days a week, Marius five days a week, and that's and then the board who are volunteers, and that's it.

So for example, Carlton, I have it's it's documented, said, okay, once 4.1 is out, which Carlton's the release manager for, hopefully we we can find some time so Carlton and I can work on this, you know, and Carlton can do it.

There isn't someone else to rejigger the homepage, there isn't someone to rejigger the sidebar experience.

It's so it comes out of, you know, it'd be nice to have a grant and have someone else do it, but Carlton, what do you think?

I mean, right?

That's it's just we're

just so constrained.

So if we can just get someone from a design agency on anyone want to come on, and then they can like step up and redo the site, and then you know, hey, presto, it's done.

Um I don't know.

I'm not I'm you know, I can tweet, I can do little tweaks, I can put a page together, but I'm not redesigning the site, I'm not re-information architecting it.

Like, I just have the time and the skills.

But no, it's like simple things, right?

That's the thing.

Like as a board member, we like our whole last couple meetings is hey, people aren't doing stuff.

It's like, well, we don't ask them to, right?

There's 200 members, they're not asked to do much.

I sent an email kind of raising a flag, and you know, I th I think we're really hurting without from the lack of in-person meetings personally.

The dopamine hits are not as strong.

Okay, so how does that actually happen, right?

Like, I'm on the board, I guess we could just decide, um, but I would rather have discussions with like prominent Django people at a Django Con.

I talk about in the members, you know, there's this because it's not a dictatorship, you sort of like, well, I could start on it, but I kind of know the pushback I'm gonna get.

And since it's all volunteer work, it's a lot of work to do on a maybe, instead of somehow getting everyone to say, yeah, we need to redesign it, and here's these finalists, and who's gonna PM it and all the rest.

It it's you know, in the absence of in-person meetings, it just becomes uh harder to push that through.

I mean, I I saw some of the background of the the Python website redesign, and that was a huge amount of work.

And I I think within open source, get like governance, authority, like who who actually feels empowered that they could actually change the website is a huge question, right?

Like it's it's one of the the hardest things about open source is like who is who feels they have the authority to add, say you put ads on the Django project website, like who feels that they could actually make that decision, right?

And I don't think anybody does.

In some way, I mean there's like a legal person, there is a person who has that legal authority, but do they feel empowered to be able to do that?

It's like who feels empowered to to make that that process, and then executing doing a web design or redesign is super hard.

Like even for people with infinite funding, it's a nightmare.

Yeah, so it's it is a don't don't feel bad because it is a hard problem.

But I do want also want to like step back in scope and like I know there's a thread in in the website or in the DSF chat about like redesigning the website, but like I'm not talking about redesigning the website, I'm talking about like putting the logos on the current website, yeah.

Because donate is donate is not like donation is is a like no.

Do not use that word.

That word is is bad.

That that means I am a corporation and I get no value.

Um what you want is you want sponsors, and and your members can be sponsors.

It doesn't mean they have to give, you know, you can be a five dollar a month sponsor or whatever, but I I do believe that like donation as a concept is something that like corporations equate with like a different budget than sponsorship.

Like sponsorship's marketing money, donation is like we do a matching fund for our employees budget.

Sponsorship is how you actually give value to people.

Like, is there a prospectus?

Like, if I'm a company, what do I get when I give you money?

Like, is there something I can then send to my boss to be like, hey, I think we should be a bronze level.

I mean, it's the exact same thing as a conference sponsorship, right?

You need the prospectus, you need sponsorship, you need value.

Um and the PSF has been doing a lot of work kind of adding like selling sponsorships and merging conference and community benefits, which is really kind of interesting.

We've done some of that with Write the Docs as well, where we actually sell, you know, job postings as part of a conference sponsorship that shows up on our community job board to try and kind of spur the usage of that job board.

Yeah, so much of this, right, is is super basic, but it's really hard, right?

If you're just a bunch of developers and you're like, How do I how do I build a sponsorship program?

Like it's it's it's

It's all the stuff that needs to get done that isn't as fun to do, right?

Like um all this, you know, and for me, like I would really like to see these things happen, but I like personally don't have the time to do it on top of being the treasurer and all the things I'm doing.

So one thing which I you know I saw you did one path I might take is to step down from the board and to try to work specifically on some of these things so that I have the time to do it and I'm not doing all the other things I need to do.

Um so it's yeah, but you know, we we need the prospectus, we need the the sidebar.

Um I think also at this point something, you know, it's also as a volunteer, it is I think we would get more people if we had bigger, audacious public goals.

It's less enticing to keep something going as a volunteer than it is to, you know, redesign the site, improve the corporate thing, you know, do a new feature.

Carlton's shaking his finger at me.

Whereas put the sponsor logo on the front page, that's an addressable

kind of small thing.

Now when we we we have this thing with feature issues, right?

So a feature issue comes on.

Sorry, um, you let me just say this point, because it is exactly like adding a new feature.

It's like, can we, I don't know, add this little tweak thing to the to the to the admin.

Yeah, we can add that little tweak thing, but can we add this whole new major feature?

No, we can't.

So it it's much more addressable to do the one little tweak than it is the big, you know, oh, let's boil the ocean.

But I know it's gonna help our just

Like now, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, at this point we already did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I mean, we are though, I compared to the Python Software Foundation, as you noted, there was there has been this big shift from generally all most of the funding came from the conferences, and then A, that's a weakness in general, and then with COVID, that's a real problem.

Django has never made much money from the conferences, so in a way that's more stable for us, um, even though that is, you know, that's something we could and should do, right?

Like we could have part-time paid hourly staff and make the conferences more of a job fair for businesses.

Um, it's just a question of who's gonna do that.

But in any event,

And I I will note this this is one of the reasons why Read the Docs is a for-profit and not a nonprofit.

Because I I actually have some probably unpopular opinions around the incentive structures and and kind of public perception around nonprofits.

But I I actually do think being a nonprofit constrains the way you can make revenue and changes people's perception of when you actually try to generate revenue, uh, along with the tax implications and legal things and whatnot.

But like when people hear you're a nonprofit, that it's just a different conversation.

I mean, you can hire people, you can do all the work.

Um, but I do think that makes things a little bit harder, at least at the small scale.

Um but anyway, that's one thousand.

I mean, even coming, I'm very in I just came from a business school reunion.

Uh, in business school, I took a class on nonprofits, and my takeaway was it's twice the work because you have to do all the things of a for-profit, plus all the extra requirements of a nonprofit, plus people don't want you to make too much money.

So it's just, you know, like for me, like I like I do books and education, and I've thought, well, maybe I should do a nonprofit, right?

Maybe it should be like free code camp.

But just the logistics of that constant, you know, you're replacing people who pay you with sponsors and donors who are less reliable.

And you know, again, you get these big spikes, but then you get these troughs.

And um I personally, if I ever did like a free code camp kind of site, I would make it a for-profit and charge for like five percent of it or something, or have sponsors, you know, ads, right?

It just an actual non-profit is just so much work.

Um Yeah.

It's it that's part of why it's also hard to define.

I mean, uh, it's still just a legal entity, just like a poor for-profit.

It just has a board that controls it.

But I think it's just a lot harder for people to understand that it's like it also has its own needs, it needs fundraising, it needs revenue.

Like, I mean, for the DSF in particular, what is overhead?

I'm sure is a fraught question.

I mean, and and this is partly, I guess, my fault, or just you know, we don't, you know, the PSF has an annual report that says here's who got paid what and here's the budget.

And we have that now since I've I've been there and working with um working on that, but I d haven't done a blog post to share it publicly, right?

I probably should.

You know, it's it's not a mystery.

It's two-thirds fellows and then a third everything else.

But because people don't know that and see that, even the DSF members, why why would they know that, right?

So it's I guess on me a little bit.

And like, well,

I now have to file that and you know, it you know, so it's just an invisible pain for the past treasures.

But I I do think that in some ways, yeah, like that that amorphousness is really hard because it does make it a little harder to figure out where you fit in and how you're gonna generate funding.

And and there there are a lot of funding opportunities, especially with the grants that are only available to nonprofits.

Um, and so there there are some benefits there as well, of course.

Um, but yeah, I don't want to don't want to go too far down the the nonprofit rabbit hole because it it's pretty arcade.

Well, but I mean it is uh it's interesting.

That was added since I joined.

That's basically the only way I can do the job or anyone could do the job.

Before me, there was people came in and out because it is even for me, it's hours a week.

And she's doing, you know, she's physically filing the 990.

I'm reviewing it, you know.

So I'm sort of even though I I've long said I never want to manage anyone, I'm I'm managing her a little bit, but yeah, that's why it happens.

So um, so yeah.

Anyways, yes.

All these all these things that that matter and that you know regular users don't need to know, but DSF members I think should know more about, and so that's really probably on the board to communicate the needs.

We're pro we're most likely going to institute a change where it's um two-year terms because if you're just on for a year, you basically take a year to learn how to do anything, and then you can finally do something.

So this year has been great in that we've been able to just do stuff instead of bring people up to speed on what in our surely

One year to learn and two years to do something.

Otherwise, that's yeah.

I think PSF is three year.

Yeah.

I just wanted to this, I mean, you know, all the non-profit stuff there, it's kind of interesting.

But what one thing it does tie into that I think you know is more open and perhaps a uh you know, way to segue out of there is that part of the Django sort of feel is the community, and and how I don't know what's your take on on it on that, Eric.

In like in terms of I I kind of feel that the non-profit and the way Jacob and Avery would stepped away from the BSDF role and all of that kind of thing.

Um BSDFP,

Benevolent BDF.

BDFL, BDFL.

Uh oh, I don't know how to turn that into a question.

But like how that how that's that way in like aren't the two don't the two go hand in hand?

Like you can't really have the sort of Django community without the sort of the foundation and the non-profit status and it being the way it is.

There's there's nothing about the governance or the legal entity.

Like, like for-profit companies actually have more flexibility in terms of being charitable.

Right, okay.

Like, we pay taxes and we do whatever we want.

Like, cool.

Um, and so I do think that like this is part of what I'm talking about, right?

People conflate the legal status with the mission with a bunch of other things that are all wrapped up in how they think about it, and it just makes it a little harder to communicate clearly with people.

The need for we're gonna pay somebody to raise money as a nonprofit is like probably a little harder than saying as a business we're gonna do a salesperson or whatever.

And I do think there are people in the community that have this skill set.

Um, but yeah, it's just like it's not a skill set people do for free generally.

Like, no,

Wait, is that is that it's like even weirder and more awkward with with money.

You're like, oh, so my job is to generate revenue and get paid nothing.

Oh, great.

This this makes a ton of sense.

Um, but yeah, no, I I think that there's a lot of small things that that the DSF could do to better convey the value it provides.

Um and and I think the donate page does a great job, but like it just needs to be more pervasive throughout all of the the content, all of the kind of marketing, all the communication.

Um and so yeah, but it these are things every organization struggles with, right?

Like I don't want to make it sound like it's easy.

So at least we got an action.

So you don't have to, but if you did, that would be a good idea.

Uh like finally get a blog post out this year.

What what haven't we asked you, right?

I mean, what do you want to tell people about that uh we haven't teed up?

But let's talk about it.

Um hang on, hang on.

So what go back and say, what is this?

Um but yeah, and I I did 800 miles and ended up breaking my foot uh by by walking too much.

I got a stress fracture.

So that was did not did not choose to stop, but uh

So basically I did the worst part.

Um so you didn't get to Mount Whitney then?

So yeah, I got to go.

Oh yeah,

So I I did some at Whitney and and got to do that.

That kind of saw the beginning of the

Unfortunately, can you just put a marker in the ground and go back a few years later and pick it up and say this is where I was, I'm carrying on.

Go right back in the same pass if I wanted to.

Um, but yeah, it's hard to hard to find the time to to take five months off to hike across the country.

So on the East Coast, there's the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, which literally I I I just was just home at my parents' house.

It literally goes in front of my parents' house in Vermont.

And my wife hiked the entire thing after college.

Um, I only did a bit of it with her.

And people though, mo many people can't take the time to do the whole thing, so they'll section hike it and they will like you know go to to ex it becomes very um specific, right?

Like you can't skip a section, right?

You if you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it.

So it may take 10 years, but you you know, you want to do the whole thing.

But yeah, just uh fun, fun little uh lots of lots of hikers, I think, in the in the open source community.

But yeah, that it's definitely something I still still do all almost every weekend and and enjoy.

So that's that's how I'm able to to kind of do so much work is to you know get the endorphins on the weekend, I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, Carlton?

Philosophy?

Yeah, no, I mean I did I do good time.

Yeah.

Um thank you for taking the time.

Thank you for just not just the ideas, but just inspiring me, Carlton, others to do the work on Django because especially around funding, like there's so much opportunity.

It's just a question of seeing role models like read the docs um and trying to tackle the easy things to you know keep it secure, which is what we all want going forward.

All right, well, we are uh

We get reports every single week, and you know, there's this experienced developers giving time there.

Like that if we were to put that work more front and center, there's a thing that you know comes in.

Like the free version of Django versus the premium version.

To kind of highlight that that word and put it forward, yeah.

Yeah.

This is actually our last live episode of the spring.

We will be back in the fall.

Um, so we'll put out replay episodes.

But Eric, thank you so much for taking the time.

Totally.

Thanks.

All right, we'll see everyone next time.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.