I am very sad to report that John Pinner has passed away. The Python Community has lost a great friend. John received a PSF Community Service Award in 2010 for his many contributions. He was a PSF fellow and an organizer of PyCon UK from 2007 to 2014 and of EuroPython from 2004 to 2011. He was also a frequent speaker at PyCons, and at workshops and users' groups, as well as an enthusiastic and effective advocate of Python and Open Source.
John was an original contributor to Free and Libre Open Source Software UK (FLOSS), which started out as the UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG). After working 21 years as Principal Engineer for The Rover Company Limited, he decided to found his own company, Clockwork Software Systems.
His dedication to and interest in Python are best expressed in his own words:
Thanks to Linux Journal I 'discovered' Python in 2000 and have been using it ever since; together with an occasional regression to C, it covers all my programming needs. I find that it gets in the way least of all the languages I have used, and brings back the joy to programming. I am proud to be an elected member of the Python Software Foundation, and am something of a Python evangelist, through running training courses and promoting such events such as PyCon UK.
I had the great honor and pleasure of meeting and spending time with John at PyCon UK in 2013. He was a delightful host, full of energy, knowledge about the locale (history, good beers and the best pubs, landmarks, neighborhoods, cathedrals), and enthusiastic good will. To give a sense of his warm-hearted and jovial personality to those who didn't know him, his intermediate-level Python tutorial included such topics as WTF is Pythonic and it's not C, C++ or Java, don't try and make it so. Heartfelt condolences to his family and to all whose lives he touched. He will be sorely missed.
