Minutes of SunPy Board Meeting 20191118
18 November 2019
Present: Steven Christe (Chair), Tiago Pereira, David Pérez-Suárez, Jack Ireland, Russell Hewett, Kevin Reardon, Bin Chen, Stuart Mumford
Absent: Sabrina Savage, Monica Bobra
- SunPy Roles
- NumFocus Summit Report
- Python in Heliophysics Report
- SunPy Survey and Papers
- SunPy Coordination Meeting
- Instrument Package Working Group
- OpenAstronomy
- Other Business
SunPy Roles:
Discussion of difference between Affiliated package liaison and Instrument package liaison
Affiliated package liaison is for a specific set of SunPy-adjacent packages; instrument packages might not be, or want to be, affiliated packages, so needs are different.
How we get this rolling? We don't need a vote, just a "blessing" from the board.
Stuart wants to write a blog post, with time commitments estimates, and email the mailing list.
A PR will be created with a time limit for comments.
Monica got some suggestions from Brigitta at Astropy that she tried to incorporate in the roles list.
- Don't have too many roles – this leads to viscosity in taking action
- Number of community and technical roles should be balanced, to indicate equal importance.
Actions:
– blog post and email about available roles
– create a PR for roles
NumFocus Summit Report:
Board received an update from Stuart and Monica on the NumFOCUS Summit. Primary topics were:
- Governance:
Steven to look over the board governance (SEP-002) and propose edits
The current process makes making decisions harder than it needs to be (Steve notes that allowing votes only at board meetings is onerous).
Monica will contact Sophie and confirm her appointment as Education and Community lead
- Code of Conduct reporting:
For example: The NumFOCUS code of conduct has a direct link to a Reporting Form to register potential violations of the CoC.
Sophie will come up with a draft Stuart will connect Sophie with Gina at NumFOCUS and Sophie will come up with a draft reporting form. - Attracting funding:
We should put together a flyer about project vision (why), key target areas (what), and funding needs (how much).
SunPy has a mission statement (how we operate), but not much of a vision statement (where we are going) - Discourse for SunPy:
Stuart applied for and got a free instance. This might be more useful for developer communication than board;
Actions:
– Steven to propose edits to SEP-002.
– Sophie will come up with a draft Code of Conduct reporting form.
Python in Heliophysics Report:
Pushed to next meeting or email due to lack of time.
SunPy Papers:
Software Survey Paper -
Paper is being drafted for submission to Solar Physics.
If Stuart is corresponding author, then through UK agreement it will be OpenAccess.
Monica would like it if whole board were co-authors - will add weight to paper.
John Leibacher agreed to make it an “Editor's Choice” paper.
Follow up with an “Op Ed” piece somewhere else – offering more guidance and ideas about community future. Keep the paper more “factual.”
SunPy Paper: -
The Astrophysical Journal and Journal of Open Source Software papers have been accepted!
We are waiting for proofs for the ApJ paper. Steve is pinging them again.
SunPy Coordination Meeting:
This should be an exposition and planning meeting for SunPy developers (congruous to similar, but larger, meetings for Astropy, NumPy, etc.).
Board members will be strongly encouraged to attend.
Not necessarily for all “solar python” aficionados (i.e users), but only those invested in SunPy development. Instrument teams will be welcome if they are interested in learning about SunPy.
Exact dates are not defined, but are constrained by other meeting schedules, summer, etc. Exact dates will be subject of Doodle Poll.
Instrument Package Working Group:
At last IRIS meeting, Tiago talked to various groups working on instrument packages (e.g. IRIS, Solar Orbiter), who were all interested in how to integrate with SunPy and/or think about their development in the bigger framework.
This led to the idea of a Working Group is to foster communication among different groups developing instrument specific software packages. The goal is to avoid SolarSoft-like duplicative/conflicting development, even if this means initially avoiding placing any barriers or requirements on participation in working group (e.g. open-source only or following PyHC standards).
SunPy will participate to raise awareness of existing approaches and implementations and promote adoption of SunPy frameworks where appropriate.
The group will agree on a code of conduct.
Actions:
– Kevin will send out an initial email/invitation to groups listed in Google Doc and board members to set up initial organizational meeting.
OpenAstronomy:
Money pot for Google Summer of Code may be managed by SunPy. This will make it easier for us to manage while David keeps that role in OpenAstronomy and SunPy.
We currently have $3,600 from previous years, and an additional $1,800 to be transferred to our account.
Other Business:
We should make a public announcement about Jack's NASA/HDEE funding for SunPy projects, plus Dan Ryan's project (ndcube), on Twitter, mailing lists, blog post, and to Numfocus. Is a SolarNews announcement appropriate?
Actions:
– Steve will talk to Peter Young, SPD secretary, about a possible announcement.
