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.

Course Spotlight: Using pandas to Make a Gradebook in Python

With this course and Python project, you’ll build a script to calculate grades for a class using pandas. The script will quickly and accurately calculate grades from a variety of data sources. You’ll see examples of loading, merging, and saving data with pandas, as well as plotting some summary statistics.

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:

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas