[Python-Dev] Continuing 2.x (original) (raw)

C. Titus Brown ctb at msu.edu
Fri Oct 29 19:07:53 CEST 2010

On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 06:57:54PM +0200, "Martin v. L?wis" wrote:

> "Infrastructure" sounds to me like code for "money".

No, it's rather "volunteer time". Of course, people keep proposing that this should be replaced by hired time that gets paid from donations, but all such proposals so far got stuck at implementation details (i.e. it's actual work that nobody has done). > How much of the > PSF's money, for instance, comes from organizations whose primary > interest is still Python2? How many of them are only or principally > only interested in Python3? Then again, how much of the PSF's budget > goes toward infrastructure? The first two questions are difficult to answer: the PSF doesn't maintain records of what Python versions are of primary interest to sponsor members. A significant portion of the donations comes from the conference surplus (being saved for the also-likely risk of a massive conference loss); in this case, it's even difficult to identify the donors (as you can't really attribute the surplus to being from, say, attendee fees, as opposed to conference sponsors). As for the budget that goes into infrastructure: you'll find the details in the treasurer reports, but it is comparatively minor and goes primarily into hardware purchases. Connectivity and colocation is donated by companies who may not have an actual interest in Python at all (e.g. XS4ALL, which do this out of a general support for free software and in positive recollection of their former employee Thomas Wouters).

I'd just like to add my 2c that AFAICT the volunteer effort that goes into Python, and in particular into python-dev and the infrastructure foo, absolutely dwarfs all other aspects of "official" Python and PSF (including in all forms).

So, good job, -dev guys!

But they're already pretty overwhelmed. Independent of talk, unless there's a proposal to continue 2.x that actually involves someone new stepping up to put in hugely substantial and ridiculously large amounts of seriously expert time, I don't see the point of talking about it.

cheers, --titus

p.s. I would be happy to enter into discussions on how to clone Martin and others, though. I just need some epithelial cells, I think. And about $20 bn dollars, and relocation to Israel (which I think has the best combination of tech and human use guidelines for cloning). Martin's permission is not strictly necessary but should probably be obtained, too.

p.p.s. The PSF isn't foolish enough to let me speak for them, in case anyone is wondering.

-- C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu

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