Maintaining the Foundations of Python & Cautionary Tales

How do you build a sustainable open-source project and community? What lessons can be learned from Python’s history and the current mess that the WordPress community is going through? This week on the show, we speak with Paul Everitt from JetBrains about navigating open-source funding and the start of the Python Software Foundation.

Paul has been an organizer in the Python community almost from the beginning. He shares how the project has navigated through multiple sponsors. We talk about the early governance models and the formation of the Python Software Foundation.

We contrast this journey with the current drama unfolding in the WordPress community. We discuss the potential problems of having a benevolent dictator for life. We also dig into sponsorship models and ways to get companies to give back to the open-source projects they rely on.

This episode is sponsored by Sentry.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:01:55 – Meeting Jodie Burchell at PyCon 2022
• 00:02:51 – A non-traditional path into open-source
• 00:07:09 – The current turmoil around WordPress
• 00:13:49 – Keeping things fair in the age of extraction
• 00:16:03 – Sponsor: Sentry
• 00:17:07 – Early Python organizing history and conservation
• 00:20:41 – The Python Software Activity precursor to PSF
• 00:24:14 – Creating the Python Software Foundation
• 00:27:24 – Keeping the perfect distance of business and project
• 00:28:13 – Who gets to capture the value from open-source?
• 00:31:07 – Sponsorships becoming more common
• 00:33:24 – BDFL to a steering council
• 00:34:58 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:36:16 – What is Plone?
• 00:38:11 – Starting in Python and finding community
• 00:50:07 – Companies contributing
• 00:53:16 – Examples of how JetBrains contributes back
• 00:55:41 – Understanding the support system
• 00:58:09 – Talking to decision makers
• 01:00:07 – Python 1994 talk and continuation
• 01:01:49 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 01:03:06 – What do you want to learn next?
• 01:04:17 – How can people follow your work online?
• 01:07:16 – Thanks and goodbye

Show Links:

• JetBrains: Essential tools for software developers and teams
• PyCharm: the Python IDE for data science and web development
• PyCon - Join us at PyCon
• Benevolent dictator for life - Wikipedia
• The messy WordPress drama, explained - The Verge
• WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin - The Verge
• WP Engine asks court to stop Matt Mullenweg from blocking access to WordPress resources - The Verge
• Podcast: Why the WordPress Chaos Matters - 404 Media
• Zope - Wikipedia
• Python Software Foundation
• PyLadies – Women Who Love Coding in Python
• Django Software Foundation - Django
• OpenCV - About Page
• Plone Foundation
• FastHTML - Modern web applications in pure Python
• Paul Everitt - Python 1994 - YouTube
• A Team at Microsoft is Helping Make Python Faster - Python
• Velda Kiara
• JetBrains Blog: The Drive to Develop
• Paul Everitt (@pauleveritt@fosstodon.org) - Fosstodon
• Guido van Rossum - Wikipedia
• The History of Python: Personal History - part 1, CWI
• Oral History of Guido van Rossum, part 1 - YouTube

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