The PSF Board Election is Open!

It’s time to cast your vote! Voting takes place from Monday, June 20 AoE, through Thursday, June 30, 2022 AoE. Check here to see how much time you have left to vote. If you are a voting member of the PSF, you will get an email from “Helios Voting Bot <no-reply@mail.heliosvoting.org>” with your ballot, subject line will read “Vote: Python Software Foundation Board of Directors Election 2022”. If you haven’t seen your ballot by Tuesday, please 1) check your spam folder for a message from “no-reply@mail.heliosvoting.org” and if you don’t see anything 2) get in touch by emailing psf-elections@python.org so we can make sure we have the most up to date email for you.

This might be the largest number of nominees we’ve ever had! Make sure you schedule some time to look at all their statements. We’re overwhelmed by how many of you are willing to contribute to the Python community by serving on the PSF board.

Who can vote? You need to be a Contributing, Managing, Supporting, or Fellow member as of June 15, 2022 to vote in this election. Read more about our membership types here or if you have questions about your membership status please email psf-elections@python.org

The PSF's 2021 Annual Report

2021 was a challenging and exciting year for the PSF. We’ve done our best to capture some of the key numbers, details, and context in our latest annual report. Some highlights of what you’ll find in the annual report include: 

• Letter from our outgoing Board Chair Lorena Mesa
• Personal reflection on the PSF’s 20th anniversary from our outgoing interim general manager and longtime community member Thomas Wouters
• Note from our new Executive Director Deb Nicholson
• Account by Łukasz Langa on what he’s accomplished and learned in his first year as the inaugural PSF Developer in Residence
• PyCon US 2021 by the numbers
  
• Where we sent grant funding in 2021
• Summary of our 2021 financials
• Great photos plus testimonials from some of the small number of live events the PSF supported in 2021, generously shared by these groups who are doing great work for the Python community around the world:
• PyCon Tanzania with thanks to Noah Mukhangu for sharing;
• Python Workshops for Girls & Teachers Spoonbill Nest Innovation Center, Albania with thanks to Terena Cardwell; and
• Afrodjango Initiatives, Uganda with thanks to Joshua Kato.
• Sponsors who generously supported our work and the Python ecosystem in 2021

We’d love for you to take a look, and if you do, let us know what you think! You can comment here, tweet at us, or share your thoughts on discuss.python.org.

PyCon US: Successful Return to In-Person in 2022

We held our first in-person event since 2019 in Salt Lake City last month and it was well-attended, celebratory, and safe. We had 1,753 in-person attendees and 669 online attendees. Of the in-person attendees, 1,153 were attending their first PyCon US ever – we hope they’ll all be back! In-person attendees were masked and we took care to add extra space to the expo hall, the dining areas, the session rooms and the job fair. For many community members, this was their first in-person conference or community event of any type in almost 3 years. There were a LOT of hugs and some very enthusiastic -- elbow bumps. 

You can take a look at PyCon 2022 by the numbers here. 

 

Having joined the PSF as Executive Director just a few weeks before the event, this was a great opportunity to meet the community, including long-time volunteers, current and former board members, and hard-working local Python organizers from all over the world. It was also my first opportunity to meet the amazing PSF staff in person. Did you know that the PSF facilitates PyCon US with just 8 staff members? Their dedication to providing a space that is welcoming and fun, while also being safe and respectful, knows no bounds. The community is always first at PyCon US. 

 

We had lots of great talks and convened summits focused on Maintainers, Typing, Education, Packaging and the development of the Python Language. We also hosted Mentored Sprints for Diverse Beginners, the PyLadies Auction, four Lightning Talk Sessions, and two days of Sprints. We hit a few snags with a new AV team this year, but now most of the videos are up on our YouTube channel. 

 

This year’s event was a little more cautious, but it was really nice to see people. We’re actively looking for ways to better engage our online attendees next year and would welcome your ideas. Thanks to our many, many volunteers, especially three-time PyCon US Chair Emily Morehouse! Thank you also to our wonderful sponsors, many of whom not only help us put on PyCon US but also support the Python Programming Language throughout the year!!

 

Mark your calendar for PyCon US 2023 from April 19th to April 27th, 2023 both in Salt Lake City or online. If you are interested in talking about sponsorship opportunities for 2023, please drop us a line. And we are always looking for more volunteers, so if you’d like to be part of a future event as a volunteer, just let us know.

Welcome Chloe Gerhardson to the PSF staff!

With great anticipation and excitement we are happy to announce that Chloe Gerhardson (she/her) has joined the Python Software Foundation (PSF) as of Monday May 23, 2022. Chloe joins the team as Infrastructure Engineer, led by PSF Director of Infrastructure Ee Durbin.

Chloe Gerhardson - PSF Infrastructure Engineer

As a recent graduate of Springfield Technical Community College’s associates program in Computer Programming, Chloe will be growing into a role that supports the wide gamut of software technologies that facilitate the technical aspects of our community.

In time Chloe will share in all responsibilities of the Infrastructure Team and help the PSF move its infrastructure commitment to the community from a reactive and maintenance stance towards progress on new and expanded services to fulfill our mission.

In her own words…

I am thrilled and grateful to be brought along in the journey of growing and maintaining the PSF’s infrastructure, and I look forward to working with the PSF’s incredible staff members, as well as our wonderful community members at large.

Although excitement abounds for the learning, growing, and doing that this role requires Chloe also stays busy as a committed, registered, and active Registered Yoga Teacher in her community, skateboarder, dog lover, traveler, and aficionado of live music.

Please join us in welcoming Chloe!

Python Developers Survey 2021: Python is everywhere

We are excited to announce the results of the fifth official annual Python Developers Survey. This work is done each year as a collaborative effort between the Python Software Foundation and JetBrains. Late last year, more than 23,000 Python developers and enthusiasts from almost 200 countries/regions participated in the survey to reveal the current state of the language and the ecosystem around it.

Python is being used by the vast majority (84%) of survey respondents as their primary language and by many others as just one more tool in their box. Interestingly, only 29% of the Python developers involved in data analysis and machine learning consider themselves to be Data Scientists. And like past years, many use Python in conjunction with other popular development and data tools like SQL, Jupyter Notebook, Virtualenv, Docker or with the most popular web development technologies including Django, Javascript and HTML. 

Results of the 2021 Python Developers Survey

This is also the first time we have packaging information in the survey. It was interesting to see the wide range of tools that Python users are employing for their packaging tasks. The PSF is currently focusing on improving the packaging ecosystem and building a roadmap for the future of packaging. We hope you will continue sharing your opinions with us on this part of your work so that we can continue improving. 

Here's a link to the raw data, if you want to go deeper. 

If you do look at the raw data and discover things you think the community would be interested in, we hope you’ll let us know. Please share your thoughts on Twitter or other social media, mentioning @jetbrains and @ThePSF with the #pythondevsurvey hashtag. We are also open to any suggestions and feedback related to this survey which could help us run an even better one next time. You are also encouraged to open issues here or join the conversation on our forum.

PSF Board Election Dates for 2022

Board elections are a chance for the community to help us find the next batch of folks to help us steer the PSF. This year there are 4 seats open on the PSF board. You can see who is on the board currently here. (Kushal, Jannis, Lorena and Marlene are at the end of their current terms.) Nominations for new board members opens today!

Timeline:

• Nominations are open, Wednesday, June 1st 12:00 PM Eastern
• Board Director Nomination cut-off: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 AoE
• Voter application cut-off date: Wednesday, June 15, 2022 AoE
• Announce candidates: Thursday, June 16th
• Voting start date: Monday, June 20, 2022 AoE
• Voting end date: Friday, June 30, 2022 AoE

Nominations should be made through this form (Note: you will need to sign into or create your python.org user account first). You can nominate yourself or someone else, but no one will be forced to run, so you may want to consider reaching out to someone before nominating them.  

You need to be a contributing, managing, supporting, or fellow member by June 15th to vote in this election. Learn more about membership here or if you have questions about membership or nominations please email psf-elections@python.org

You are welcome to join the discussion about the PSF Board election on our forum or come find us in Slack.