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Django Gets Its Own Foundation

The developers of Django, a Python-based framework for creating and deploying sophisticated Web applications, announced yesterday that they have established the Django Foundation. This foundation, like foundations for Apache and Mozilla, will allow for communal ownership of the Django code, as well as accept donations and pay individuals. The three founding board members are Django creator Adrian Holovaty, as well as well-known Django personalities Jacob Kaplan-Moss and Dan Cox.

Django is sometimes known as the Python equivalent of Ruby on Rails. In many ways, this is true; like Rails, Django uses a model-view-controller (MVC) approach to Web development, has a sophisticated object-relational mapper, comes with a built-in templating system, and encourages a DRY ("don't repeat yourself") style of programming. But Django also differs from Rails in a number of ways, from the built-in support for users, to a standard administration interface, to a more explicit style of addressing the database than Rails.

Moreover, Django has taken an approach similar to that of the Python language, with an understated (i.e., non-hyped) approach and conservative release cycles. Just recently, there was some discussion in the Django community over the speed of new releases, and the fact that many new features were only available to sites that would link their production code to the Django version-control system, something that is rather ill-advised. (The project heads are now saying that we can expect a 1.0 release of Django in September 2008.) The Django Foundation will not only give the community an additional voice in making decisions, but will also provide an official, public face to development of the software and associated documentation.

Foundations are not only about community control, but also about money: With the Django Foundation in place, it will be able to solicit and accept money in an organized fashion, both from companies and individuals. This will allow for everything from donations from grateful developers, to grants from large companies. In addition to allocating staff engineers to open-source projects, corporations such as IBM, Apple, and Sun have given money to open-source foundations in the past. Companies that appreciate Django, and want to donate money to the foundation in order to advance its development, will be able to do so via the foundation.

I would be curious to know why Django needs its own foundation, rather than hooking up with the Python foundation or even the Apache foundation, both of which would seem to offer a natural fit. Other than that, the establishment of the Django foundation is a positive step forward for this important open-source framework, and makes it ever more likely that Django will continue to be developed and supported by an active community.

• python
• web development
• rails
• django
• foundation

by Tom Weir on Jun. 18, 2008

I would speculate that it simply comes down to following the path of existing Python-related foundations. E.g. the Zope foundation, and the Plone foundation.

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