The PSF has shared the annual financial statements with us (the Steering Council) for all the funds it holds specifically for CPython. As I did last year I’m sharing some highlights.
For those who aren’t aware and don’t want to read last year’s long post, the brief summary is that CPython, as a project, gets a share of the PSF’s sponsor income (in particular the higher tier sponsors, see “Core Development Benefits” on https://www.python.org/sponsors/application/). We also get targeted donations (through https://www.python.org/psf/donations/python-dev/ or through GitHub Sponsors), and we get grants for specific projects, like the Developers-in-Residence. (Łukasz’s current grant is from Meta, and Petr’s is from Bloomberg.)
We spend money primarily on the three Developers-in-Residence, and travel to the Core Dev Sprints/PyCon US. And yes, we are working on finding more funding for the Developers-in-Residence. We think three is probably enough for now[1], but we’d like to keep them for longer than a year.
This year’s highlights (arranged a little differently than last year’s post):
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 forecast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grants | 204,000 | 340,000 | |
| Sponsor revenue | 65,040 | 151,755 | |
| Donations | 39,974 | 74,696 | |
| Core Dev Sprint | -31,315 | -17,784 | |
| Development | -198,437 | -183,012 | -328,342 |
| — | — | — | — |
| Ending balance | 267,101 | 614,290 | 285,940 |
Don’t stare too much at the 2023 ending balance (or 2022’s, for that matter); that number includes money already earmarked for spending, specifically for the Developers-in-Residence. Subtracting the $328,342 they’re collectively expected to cost (until the end of their current contracts) and what we’re expecting to pay for the initial mentorship sessions, our actual spending runway is about $280k. That’s good! More than last year’s $180k by a healthy margin. It’s great to see both the sponsorship revenue and the direct contributions up, as well. It means we have a pretty good buffer for our current Developers-in-Residence. It also means we can consider spending money on more things, especially after we secure grants for the next year for all three current Developers-in-Residence roles (hint hint).
And as a reminder, PyCon US 2024 travel grants for Core Developers will come from this budget as well, so please don’t feel like you’re taking someone else’s place if you’re considering it! And Core Devs can get a complimentary ticket to PyCon US 2024, which comes directly from the PSF, not from this budget. Applications for both are still open: - Travel Grants - PyCon US 2024
but don’t let that stop you from offering funding for more Developers-in-Residence! ↩︎