I encourage folks in your community who know Python join us - maybe you can spread the word?
We will build the best ever QA product - no doubt.

If you're looking to support an open SE alternative by donating either time or money, OSQA is probably the way to go.

It seems to me to be another indication of the MO software not working in exactly the way that any of the users (including moderators and administrators) want it to. I hope the founders of MO have begun planning for a future which includes a better platform. I recommend that you consider applying for grant money to build / administrate / house your own hardware and software. I would even consider donating some of my professional funds to this cause.

I respectfully disagree with your recommendation. My experience is that the software and service from Fog Creek are incredibly good, despite occasional things that aren't exactly how I'd like them to be. There have been a number of occasions where I've been delightfully surprised by how the software handles certain situations, Fog Creek has been reasonable in responding to feature requests and is always extremely helpful when I contact them by email, and we've found satisfying workarounds to many of the problems that were not addressed by additional features or bug-fixes. Very occasionally, I've wanted to have direct access to the database, but I've always been able to handle those by emailing the SE team.

Supposing getting money was not a problem, who would build/administrate/house the hardware and software? Part of the appeal of SE is that we can simply pay somebody to do all that stuff that we don't want to do (and probably can't do competently). With all that taken care of, the remaining administration duties can reasonably be handled by a handful of mathematicians who have other things to do too.

Still, a change of platform is definitely in the cards as an option. I do expect that open source versions of SE will be developed (I know of at least one so far). Right now, I don't think it's worth it to use them, but they'll get better and we should certainly keep an eye on them. If eventually a good open alternative is available, we should consider it since it would offer more customizability at a lower price (we'd still have hosting costs). I don't intend to actively bring one of these alternatives up to par (I'm a mathematician, not a programmer), but I applaud anybody who does.

@Jonas: I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Also, it could just be my "light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train" approach to things ;-)

Then I did try to read the gist of each answer, before I upvoted.

If there must be a ruling, can we have it that if the moderators truly think something inappropriate for meta then they promise to take the initiative and contact the parties involved. In the meantime, the rest of us can relax and stop starting each thread with "if this is inappropriate for meta then I apologise ..."!

PS Congratulations to Yemon on his elevation. Although if we're in the mood for quotes, the one that springs to mind is "approbation, elevation and ..." but I shan't finish it.

P.S. if this seems an inappropriate use of meta, let me know and I'll delete.