.. _motivations:
Core Developer Motivations and Affiliations
===========================================
CPython core developers participate in the core development process for a
variety of reasons. Being accepted as a core developer indicates that
an individual is interested in acquiring those responsibilities, has the
ability to collaborate effectively with existing core developers, and has had
the time available to demonstrate both that interest and that ability.
This page allows core developers that choose to do so to provide more
information to the rest of the Python community regarding their personal
situation (such as their general location and professional affiliations), as
well as any personal motivations that they consider particularly relevant.
Core developers that wish to provide this additional information add a new
entry to the :ref:`published-motivations` section below. Guidelines relating
to content and layout are included as comments in the source code for this page.
Core developers that are available for training, consulting, contract, or
full-time work, or are seeking crowdfunding support for their community
contributions, may also choose to provide that information here (including
linking out to commercial sites with the relevant details).
For more information on the origins and purpose of this page, see
:ref:`goals-of-the-motivations-page`.
.. _published-motivations:
Published entries
-----------------
The following core developers have chosen to provide additional details
regarding their professional affiliations and (optionally) other reasons for
participating in the CPython core development process:
.. Entry guidelines:
We use the "topic" directive rather than normal section headings in order to
avoid creating entries in the main table of contents.
Topic headings should be in the form of "Name (Country)" or
"Name (Continent)" to help give some indication as to the geographic
distribution of core developers.
NOTE: The rest of these guidelines are highly provisional - we can evolve
them as people add entries, and we decide on the style we like. The
current iteration is based on feedback that the first version (which
*required* coming up with a personal bio) was a bit excessive.
Minimal entries just include relevant professional affiliations, as follows:
.. topic:: <name> (<country/continent>)
* <company> (<role>)
Longer entries should be written as short third person biographies, rather
than being written in first person (See existing entries for examples).
Entries should be maintained in alphabetical order by last name, or by
name-as-written (relative to other last names) if "last name" isn't a
meaningful term for your name.
Include a "Personal site" bullet point with a link if you'd like to highlight
a personal blog or other site.
Include an "Extended bio" bullet point with a link if you'd like to provide
more than a couple of paragraphs of biographical information. (Use a
double-trailing underscore on these links to avoid "Duplicate explicit
target name" warnings from Sphinx/docutils)
Include an "Available for <activity>" (or activities) bullet point with a
link if you'd like to be contacted for professional training, consulting or
contract work, or other employment opportunities. A link to a page with
additional details is preferred to a direct email address or contact phone
number, as this is a global site, and folks may not be familiar with the
relevant practical details that apply to this kind of work in a contributor's
country of residence.
Include a "Crowdfunding" bullet point with a link if you'd like to highlight
crowdfunding services (e.g. Patreon) that folks can use to support your core
development work.
Include additional bullet points (without links) for any other affiliations
you would like to mention.
If there's a kind of link you'd like to include in your entry that isn't
already covered by the categories mentioned above, please start a discussion
about that on the python-committers mailing list.
python-committers is also the appropriate point of contact for any other
questions or suggestions relating to this page.
.. topic:: Brett Cannon (Canada)
* Personal site: `snarky.ca <https://snarky.ca/>`_
* `Extended bio <https://stackoverflow.com/cv/DrBrettCannon>`__
* Microsoft (Software Developer)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
.. topic:: Nick Coghlan (Australia)
* Personal site: `Curious Efficiency <https://www.curiousefficiency.org/>`_
* `Extended bio <https://www.curiousefficiency.org/pages/about>`__
* `Tritium <https://www.tritium.com.au/>`__ (Software Developer)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow, Packaging Working Group)
Nick began using Python as a testing and prototyping language while working
for Boeing Defence Australia, and continues to use it for that purpose today.
As a core developer, he is primarily interested in helping to ensure Python's
continued suitability for educational, testing and data analysis use cases,
as well as in encouraging good architectural practices when assembling Python
applications and test harnesses from open source components.
.. topic:: Steve Dower (United States/Australia)
* Microsoft (Software Developer)
* Personal site: `stevedower.id.au <https://stevedower.id.au/>`_
* Speaking: `stevedower.id.au/speaking <https://stevedower.id.au/speaking>`_
* Work blog: `aka.ms/pythonblog <https://aka.ms/pythonblog>`_
* Email address: steve.dower@python.org
Steve started with Python while automating a test harness for medical
devices, and now works for Microsoft on anything that makes Python more
accessible to developers on any platform.
As a core developer, his focus is on maintaining the already excellent
Windows support and improving Python's ability to be embedded in other
applications.
.. topic:: Christian Heimes (Germany)
* Red Hat (Software Developer, Security Engineering / Identity Management)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
.. topic:: Mariatta (Canada)
* Personal site: `mariatta.ca <http://mariatta.ca>`_
* Works as a `Software Engineer <https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariatta/>`_
in Vancouver, helps organize `Vancouver PyLadies
<https://www.meetup.com/PyLadies-Vancouver/>`_ meetup on the side, and
sometimes `speaks <http://mariatta.ca/pages/talk-chronology.html#talk-chronology>`_
at conferences.
* Email address: mariatta@python.org
* `Sponsor Mariatta on GitHub <https://github.com/users/Mariatta/sponsorship>`_
* `Patreon <https://www.patreon.com/Mariatta>`_
Support Mariatta by `becoming a sponsor <https://github.com/users/Mariatta/sponsorship>`_,
sending her a `happiness packet <https://www.happinesspackets.io/send/>`_,
or `paypal <https://www.paypal.me/mariatta>`_.
.. topic:: R. David Murray (United States)
* Personal site: `bitdance.com <http://www.bitdance.com>`_
* Available for `Python and Internet Services Consulting
and Python contract programming <http://www.murrayandwalker.com/>`_
David has been involved in the Internet since the days when the old IBM
BITNET and the ARPANet got cross connected, and in Python programming since
he first discovered it around the days of Python 1.4. After transitioning
from being Director of Operations for dialup Internet providers (when that
business started declining) to being a full time independent consultant,
David started contributing directly to CPython development. He became a
committer in 2009. He subsequently took over primary maintenance of the
email package from Barry Warsaw, and contributed the unicode oriented API.
David is also active in mentoring new contributors and, when time is
available, working on the infrastructure that supports CPython development,
specifically the Roundup-based bug tracker and the buildbot system.
David currently does both proprietary and open source development work,
primarily in Python, through the company in which he is a partner, `Murray &
Walker, Inc <http://www.murrayandwalker.com>`_. He has done contract work
focused specifically on CPython development both through the PSF (the
kickstart of the email unicode API development) and directly funded by
interested corporations (additional development work on email funded by
QNX, and work on CPython ICC support funded by Intel). He would like to
spend more of his (and his company's) time on open source work, and so is
actively seeking additional such contract opportunities.
.. topic:: Antoine Pitrou (France)
* LinkedIn: `<https://www.linkedin.com/in/pitrou/>`_ (Senior Software Engineer)
* Independent (currently Ursa Labs / R Studio)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
* Available for open source contract work
* Email address: antoine@python.org
Antoine started working with Python in 2005 in order to implement a
decentralized virtual world protocol. He started contributing to CPython
in 2007 and became a core developer in 2008. His motivations have been
driven both by the abstract desire to make Python better for the whole
world, and by the concrete roadblocks he was hitting in professional
settings. Topics of choice have included interpreter optimizations,
garbage collection, network programming, system programming and
concurrent programming (such as maintaining ``multiprocessing``).
As a professional, Antoine has been first specializing in network
programming, and more lately in open source data science infrastructure
such as Dask, Numba, Apache Arrow.
.. topic:: Victor Stinner (France)
* `Personal website <https://vstinner.readthedocs.io/>`__
* Red Hat (Senior Software Engineer)
Victor is paid by Red Hat to maintain Python upstream and downstream (RHEL,
CentOS, Fedora & Software collections). See `Victor's contributions to
Python <http://vstinner.readthedocs.io/python_contrib.html>`_.
.. topic:: Kushal Das (India)
* `Personal website <https://kushaldas.in>`__
* `Freedom of the Press Foundation <https://freedom.press>`__ (Staff)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
.. topic:: Barry Warsaw (United States)
* `LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-warsaw/>`_ (Senior Staff
Software Engineer - Python Foundation team)
* Personal site: `barry.warsaw.us <https://barry.warsaw.us/>`_
* Blog: `We Fear Change <https://www.wefearchange.org/>`_
* Email address: barry@python.org
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
Barry has been working in, with, and on Python since 1994. He attended the
first Python workshop at NBS (now `NIST <https://www.nist.gov/>`_) in
Gaithersburg, MD in 1994, where he met Guido and several other early Python
adopters. Barry subsequently worked with Guido for 8 years while at `CNRI
<http://cnri.reston.va.us/>`_. From 2007 until 2017, Barry worked for
`Canonical <https://www.canonical.com/>`_, corporate sponsor of `Ubuntu
<https://www.ubuntu.com/>`_ Linux, primarily on the Python ecosystem, and
is both an Ubuntu and a `Debian <http://www.debian.org/>`_ uploading
developer. Barry has served as Python's postmaster, webmaster, release
manager, Language Summit co-chair, `Jython <http://www.jython.org/>`_
project leader, `GNU Mailman <http://www.list.org/>`_ project leader, and
probably lots of other things he shouldn't admit to.
.. topic:: Eric Snow (United States)
* Microsoft (Software Developer)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
.. topic:: Dino Viehland (United States)
* Meta (Software Engineer)
* Email address: dinoviehland@gmail.com
Dino started working with Python in 2005 by working on IronPython, an
implementation of Python running on .NET. He was one of the primary
developers on the project for 6 years. After that he started the Python
Tools for Visual Studio project focusing on providing advanced code completion
and debugging features for Python. Today he works on
`Cinder <https://github.com/facebookincubator/cinder/>`_ improving Python
performance for Instagram.
.. topic:: Carol Willing (United States)
* Noteable: `<https://noteable.io/about-us/>`__ (Technical Evangelist)
* Personal site: `Willing Consulting <https://www.willingconsulting.com/>`_
* `Extended bio <https://www.willingconsulting.com/about/>`__
* Project Jupyter (Steering Council, Core Team for JupyterHub/Binder)
* Python Software Foundation (Fellow)
Carol is focused on Python's usage in education and scientific research.
She is interested in organizational development, operational workflows,
and sustainability of open source projects.
.. _goals-of-the-motivations-page:
Goals of this page
------------------
The `issue metrics`_ automatically collected by the CPython issue tracker
strongly suggest that the current core development process is bottlenecked on
core developer time - this is most clearly indicated in the first metrics graph,
which shows both the number of open issues and the number of patches awaiting
review growing steadily over time, despite CPython being one of the most
active open source projects in the world. This bottleneck then impacts not only
resolving open issues and applying submitted patches, but also the process of
identifying, nominating and mentoring new core developers.
The core commit statistics monitored by sites like `OpenHub`_ provide a good
record as to *who* is currently handling the bulk of the review and maintenance
work, but don't provide any indication as to the factors currently influencing
people's ability to spend time on reviewing proposed changes, or mentoring new
contributors.
This page aims to provide at least some of that missing data by encouraging
core developers to highlight professional affiliations in the following two
cases (even if not currently paid for time spent participating in the core
development process):
* developers working for vendors that distribute a commercially supported
Python runtime
* developers working for Sponsor Members of the Python Software Foundation
These are cases where documenting our affiliations helps to improve the
overall transparency of the core development process, as well as making it
easier for staff at these organisations to locate colleagues that can help
them to participate in and contribute effectively to supporting the core
development process.
Core developers working for organisations with a vested interest in the
sustainability of the CPython core development process are also encouraged to
seek opportunities to spend work time on mentoring potential new core
developers, whether through the general `core mentorship program`_, through
mentoring colleagues, or through more targeted efforts like Outreachy's paid
`internships`_ and Google's `Summer of Code`_.
Core developers that are available for consulting or contract work on behalf of
the Python Software Foundation or other organisations are also encouraged
to provide that information here, as this will help the PSF to better
facilitate funding of core development work by organisations that don't
directly employ any core developers themselves.
Finally, some core developers seeking to increase the time they have available
to contribute to CPython may wish to pursue crowdfunding efforts that allow
their contributions to be funded directly by the community, rather than relying
on institutional sponsors allowing them to spend some or all of their work
time contributing to CPython development.
.. _issue metrics: https://bugs.python.org/issue?@template=stats
.. _OpenHub: https://www.openhub.net/p/python/contributors
.. _core mentorship program: https://www.python.org/dev/core-mentorship/
.. _internships: https://www.gnome.org/outreachy/
.. _Summer of Code: https://wiki.python.org/moin/SummerOfCode/2016
Limitations on scope
--------------------
* Specific technical areas of interest for core developers should be captured in
the :ref:`Experts Index <experts>`.
* This specific listing is limited to CPython core developers (since it's
focused on the specific constraint that is core developer time), but it
would be possible to create a more expansive listing on the Python wiki that
also covers issue triagers, and folks seeking to become core developers.
* Changes to the software and documentation maintained by core developers,
together with related design discussions, all take place in public venues, and
hence are inherently subject to full public review. Accordingly, core
developers are NOT required to publish their motivations and affiliations if
they do not choose to do so. This helps to ensure that core contribution
processes remain open to anyone that is in a position to sign the `Contributor
Licensing Agreement`_, the details of which are filed privately with the
Python Software Foundation, rather than publicly.
.. _Contributor Licensing Agreement: https://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/