Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Affirm Your PSF Membership Voting Status

Every PSF voting-eligible Member (Supporting, Contributing, and Fellow) needs to affirm their membership to vote in this year’s election.

If you wish to vote in this year’s PSF Board election, you must affirm your intention to vote no later than Tuesday, August 26th, 2:00 pm UTC. This year’s Board Election vote begins Tuesday, September 2nd, 2:00 pm UTC, and closes on Tuesday, September 16th, 2:00 pm UTC.

You should have received an email from "psf@psfmember.org <Python Software Foundation>" with the subject "[Action Required] Affirm your PSF Membership voting intention for 2025 PSF Board Election" that contains information on how to affirm your voting status. If you were expecting to receive the email but have not (make sure to check your spam!), please email psf-elections@pyfound.org, and we’ll assist you. Please note: If you opted out of emails related to your membership, you did not receive this email. 

Need to check your membership status?

Log on to psfmember.org and visit your PSF Member User Information page to see your membership record and status. If you are a voting-eligible member (active Supporting, Contributing, and Fellow members of the PSF) and do not already have a login, please create an account on psfmember.org and then email psf-elections@pyfound.org so we can link your membership to your account. Please ensure you have an account linked to your membership so that we can have the most up-to-date contact information for you in the future. 

How to affirm your intention to vote 

You can affirm your voting intention by following the steps in our video tutorial:

  • Log in to psfmember.org
  • Check your eligibility to vote (You must be a Contributing, Supporting, or Fellow member) 
  • Choose “Voting Affirmation” at the top right
  • Select your preferred intention for voting in 2025
  • Click the “Submit” button 

PSF Bylaws

Section 4.2 of the PSF Bylaws requires that “Members of any membership class with voting rights must affirm each year to the corporation in writing that such member intends to be a voting member for such year.”

Our motivation is to ensure that our elections can meet quorum as required by Section 3.9 of our bylaws. As our membership has grown, we have seen that an increasing number of Contributing and Fellow members with indefinite membership do not engage with our annual election, making quorum difficult to reach. 

An election that does not reach quorum is invalid. This would cause the whole voting process to be re-held, resulting in fewer voters and an undue amount of effort on the part of PSF Staff.

Recent updates to membership and voting

If you were formerly a Managing member, your membership has been updated to Contributing as of June 25th, 2025, per last year’s Bylaw change that merged Managing and Contributing memberships

Per another recent Bylaw change that allows for simplifying the voter affirmation process by treating past voting activity as intent to continue voting, if you voted last year, you will automatically be added to the 2025 voter roll. Please note: If you removed or changed your email on psfmember.org, you may not automatically be added to this year's voter roll. 

What happens next?

You’ll get an email from OpaVote with a ballot on or right before September 2nd, and then you can vote!

Check out our PSF Membership page to learn more. If you have questions about membership, nominations, or this year’s Board election, please email psf-elections@pyfound.org or join the PSF Discord for the upcoming Board Office Hours on August 12th, 9 PM UTC. You are also welcome to join the discussion about the PSF Board election on our forum.

Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Notice of Python Software Foundation Bylaws Change - Effective July 23, 2025

This post serves as notice that the Board of the Python Software Foundation has resolved to amend the Bylaws, effective July 23, 2025, to remove a condition of the Bylaws that would prevent the Foundation from complying with data privacy laws including those in effect in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the State of California.

Section 3.8 of the Bylaws grants Voting Members the right to request the list of Voting Members’ names and email addresses. As written, this data must be given unconditionally, which would violate the previously mentioned laws. The amendment we are making grants the Foundation the ability to place conditions upon the use of that list in a way that allows us to comply with data privacy laws.

The full change can be found at https://github.com/psf/bylaws/pull/7/files

The Board determined that this change was time-sensitive and chose to amend the Bylaws without prior consultation with Voting Members. We greatly value the input of our membership in the governance of the Foundation. Therefore, we have opted to make only the most minimal change that will enable the Foundation to comply with data privacy laws and protect our members, while preserving the spirit of the text that the membership agreed to when adopting these Bylaws.

A future Bylaws update will be offered to the membership at a future election. As we are less than 3 months from the 2025 Board election, we are targeting the 2026 Board election to allow the membership to discuss further amendments for the membership to vote upon.

Thanks,

The Python Software Foundation Board

Wednesday, July 02, 2025

Thinking about running for the PSF Board? Let’s talk!

PSF Board elections are a chance for the community to choose representatives to help the PSF create a vision for and build the future of the Python community. This year, there are 4 seats open on the PSF Board. Check out who is currently on the PSF Board on our website. (Dawn Wages, Jannis Leidel, Kushal Das, and Simon Willison are at the end of their current terms.)

Office Hours Information

This year, the PSF Board is dedicating a few of their regular Office Hour sessions on the PSF Discord to the topic of the election. This is your chance to connect with current board members to ask questions and learn more about what being a part of the Board entails. 

The two upcoming Office Hour sessions will be dedicated to the topic of the election:

We welcome you to join the PSF Discord to participate in Office Hours. The server is moderated by PSF Staff and locked between office hours sessions. If you’re new to Discord, check out some Discord Basics to help you get started. 

Who runs for the Board?

Who runs for the board? People who care about the Python community, who want to see it flourish and grow, and also have a few hours a month to attend regular meetings, serve on committees, participate in conversations, and promote the Python community. Want to learn more about being on the PSF Board? Check out the following resources to learn more about the PSF, as well as what being a part of the PSF Board entails:

Nomination info

You can nominate yourself or someone else. We encourage you to reach out to people before you nominate them to ensure they are enthusiastic about the potential of joining the Board. Nominations open on Tuesday, July 29th, 2:00 pm UTC, so you have a few weeks to research the role and craft a nomination statement. The nomination period ends on Tuesday, August 12th, 2:00 pm UTC. There will be a 'call for nominations' blog post with more information and resources about nominations coming soon.