[acdha]

Exactly why they had to do this: the PSF mission statement is “to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers.” Letting a minority of Americans limit them to the subset of people they consider politically correct wouldn’t be in keeping with that mission.

[speakfreely]

There's nothing mutually exclusive about non-discimination and diversity. They won't take the grant money because they want to drive a politicized agenda, to the detriment of the Python community as a whole.

[acdha]

Speaking of politicized agendas, I note that you are asserting without evidence that they have a secret motive other than the one states while also assuming that the administration’s interpretation of the relevant contract language will be fair and aboveboard despite the observed evidence.

[speakfreely]

Their position is logically inconsistent. If they are worried about being eventually targeted by the Trump administration, they have done more to paint a target on their back now then they ever could've done by quietly accepting the money.

I don't believe they intended for their motive to be secret at all. This was an opportunity to bring attention to their political position.

[acdha]

> If they are worried about being eventually targeted by the Trump administration, they have done more to paint a target on their back now then they ever could've done by quietly accepting the money.

That's probably not true given their prominence and the conservative people who've grumbled about them for years, but let's assume that it is the case. Think about what happens next:

If they took the money, they have a substantially non-zero risk that they would be asked to return _all_ of it based on politically-motivated enforcement triggered by anything the PSF does and would face the prospect of spending at least that much money defending themselves in court if they disagreed. You can't rule out that being as simple as someone at PyCon does something which a conservative influencer dislikes.

If they don't take the money, they don't have to estimate the likelihood of the clawback provision being exercised or spend any time trying to protect themselves in that event.

If you're a small non-profit, recognizing when you don't have the resources to fight a particular battle is a very useful skill. It seems very consistent to say that in the choice between a potential trap and no trap they had to avoid a small but non-zero risk of something which could bankrupt the organization.

> I don't believe they intended for their motive to be secret at all. This was an opportunity to bring attention to their political position.

Their motives were never secret – it's literally in the mission statement on their website! – so it's a bit unclear what the point of this paragraph was. Reporting political interference in technical organizations seems like something which is pretty broadly of interest to the community and the amount of positive attention it's getting seems to support that.