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The Python Package Index (PyPI) is far and away the largest and most visible service that the Python Software Foundation (PSF) supports for the Python community. Throughout the project’s 16 year history, it has primarily relied on volunteers and donated services to operate as it grew from an empty repository to one hosting more than 1.1 million releases for over 162,000 projects and serving more than 2.2 petabytes in 13.8 billion requests in the last month. In November 2017, we announced an award from the Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) program that made it possible to launch the ground up rewrite of PyPI’s backend in April of 2018. This milestone has offered lower maintenance overhead and helped put the codebase into a much better state to add new features, improved security, and increased accessibility for users. While some smaller features have already been proposed, designed, submitted, reviewed, and merged by volunteer contributors, other larger improvements warrant paid ...

Earlier this year we launched a Request for Information (RFI) followed by the launch of a Request for Proposals (RFP) in November to fulfill a contract for the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Core Infrastructure Fund . The initial deadline for our RFP was December 14th. We had hoped to begin work with the selected proposers in January 2019, but ultimately fell short of the ability to do so. What’s holding us back After the deadline passed there were no proposals submitted for Milestone 2. This leaves us in a position where the project cannot proceed as planned without reassessing the RFP process and extending the deadline. How we’ll move forward The RFP document has been updated based on feedback received from those who took part in the initial period to allow for additional flexibility on proposal parameters. The RFP contained two milestones that could be proposed for independently or as a pair. In responses to our RFP the security development milestone (Milestone 1) received more at...

Chukwudi, or Chux as he is often referred to in more familiar circles, is the president of Python Nigeria (@PythonNigeria) and has served as part of the PSF’s Grants Working Group for several years. Some of the work he has done with the grants working group involves dealing with very delicate situations, as grant requests need to be authenticated and require due diligence to properly understand the local context for preparing and awarding a grant. According to Nicholas H. Tollervey, a fellow Grants Working Group member, Chux regularly contacts, researches and (where possible) visits in-person many of the requesters so the Grants Work Group has the context needed to be able to make an informed decision. All of this detail oriented  work requires a great deal of interpersonal skill and effort, which Chux exerts freely as a credit to our larger Python community.   It is for this demonstrated passion and devotion to the Python community that in July 2018 the Python Software...

This year I attended my second PyConZA , which is held in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the annual gathering of the South African Python community that uses and develops the open source Python programming language. It's organized by the community for the community, fostering unique solutions to the challenges faced in Africa. For the curious: ZA stands for Zuid-Afrika, a Dutch abbreviation for South Africa. I keep coming back to South Africa to attend PyConZA. I am from Brazil but I struggle to resist a trip to South Africa to visit amazing friends, the beautiful mountains, beaches, wine farms, great food, safaris, and more. The South African conference, a conference ran entirely by a team of dedicated volunteers, reached its eighth edition this year. As an added success this year the conference reached an outstanding number of attendees. The Numbers Over five days – which included tutorials, main conference and sprints – the conference received 255 attendees, boasting 100% gro...

On November 12th and 13th, ten of the thirteen PSF board members convened in Chicago, IL. Those who could not make it to the in-person meeting, joined via phone conferencing when possible. In attendance were Naomi Ceder, Jacqueline Kazil, Thomas Wouters, Van Lindberg, Ewa Jodlowska, Lorena Mesa, Eric Holscher, Anna Ossowski, Christopher Neugebauer, and Jeff Triplett. Kushal Das and Marlene Mhangami connected remotely. In continued efforts to be transparent with our community, we wanted to share what we discussed and what actions will be taken next. Fundraising The first discussion we had pertained to directors' involvement in fundraising. What is being addressed? It is common for non-profit board members to help raise resources via their various networks. In the past, our board hasn’t been very active in this area, and we’d like to change that going forward. What are the next steps? During the meeting, we created two board committees to get directors more involved in the fundraisin...