How is the PSF governed and funded?

PSF
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Due to the nature of two recent threads, it seems advisable for us to have a discussion about how the Python Software Foundation is governed and funded.

To keep us focused, we can look at Python Software Foundation. That site might answer many questions that people may have.

The two threads mentioned above are:

However, to achieve maximum benefit, let’s stay on the topic denoted by the title of this thread.

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Here’s info to read up so we don’t ask questions that are already answered:

“Things I’ve learned serving on the board of the Python Software Foundation” blog post by Simon Willison.

A list of PSF sponsors.

The Frequently Asked Questions page for the PSF.

But I’m pretty sure most of the questions people will have in this thread are answered in the Annual Impact Report.

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Here’s a question to get us going:

  • How, specifically, has corporate support benefitted the PSF and the development of Python? Some examples may help.
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The PSF is governed by a set of bylaws and a board of directors. The bylaws outline the governance including who is eligible to serve as a member of the board of directors, what their powers are, and anything else that might be deemed appropriate. They are effectively the constitution for the organization. The board of directors are elected by the membership of the PSF (the bylaws define how to become a member.)
As for financing, the PSF is funded by membership dues and corporate sponsorships (as well as some additional fundraising.)
One of the sections of the bylaws does include that no more than 2 members can have a direct connection to a single corporate entity (I don’t have the exact wording handy) as a measure to prevent any individual corporation from being able to effectively take over the PSF and “own” Python.
The board of directors creates workgroups (Steering Council, Code of Conduct, etc.) to handle specific issues and areas.

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Each of the corporate sponsors are listed on the PSF Sponsors page. The amounts for each sponsorship level are on the Apply to Sponsor page.

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Corporate sponsorships pay for:

  • Conferences (both PyCon US and funding for other conferences through grants given by the PSF to the conferences.)
  • Conference attendance (through travel grant programs.)
  • Staff members for the PSF including developers in residence.
  • The infrastructure to run PyPI.

I’m sure there are a lot more things that corporate sponsorship pays for but those are some of the highlights.

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Minor correction, the Steering Council is not a working group. From Simon’s blog post:

Python development is handled by the Python core team, who are governed by the 5-person Python Steering Council. The Steering Council is elected by the core team. The process for becoming a core developer is described here.

How this all works is defined by PEP 13: Python Language Governance (and several subsequent PEPs). This structure was created—with much discussion—after Guido van Rossum stepped down from his role as Python BDFL in 2018.

Here’s a link to the list of governance PEPs 113, 545, 609, 729, 731, 732, and 8000 through 8106.

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In the two threads cited in the first post of this thread, some questions were asked about Microsoft’s relationship to Python. For convenience, the following are two links to detailed information about that:

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I can save people the clicks: The question asked there was if Microsoft “acquired” Python:

This, of course, is not true, but you know how the internet is: people like making things up for shock value and other people like to repeat shocking news without verifying it.

I hope b.s. changes their mind about the Python community now that their misinformation has been corrected.

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Technically, the issue of acquisition was stated as if it were fact, rather than its having been posed as a question. That statement, as you and others have acknowledged, is untrue.

The questions about this (two questions, since there were two question marks) were posed in the title of the other thread, namely:

  • Python - Microsoft deal? / what is allowed to say / ask?

Well, the deal, I suppose, is Microsoft’s membership in the PSF, which does not at all constitute an acquisition. As for the second one, the answer could be that whatever is factual about it is allowed to be said, and that any questions about it are allowed, so long as they are respectful and not misleading.

In any case, the information that everyone has provided here should be sufficient to clear this up, and now we and the user who asked are each well-informed about Microsoft’s support of Python.

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For what I know, Microsoft is paying Guido, Mark Shannon and some others Python core devs for speeding up Python. And the results are quite evident.

Source: A Team at Microsoft is Helping Make Python Faster - Python

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Correct, although some of us like me and Steve Dower don’t work on the Faster CPython team while also working at Microsoft. Although those of us at MS are not numerous enough to wield power via majority voting or something.

Anyway, I’ll reiterate what I have said before: MS has never asked me to do anything on its behalf as is insinuated by these sorts of “acquired”-like statements, even when I was on the SC and held more “power” (and I would quit if they did). And the SC structure is such that no one company can have more than 2 members.

And at other points Google had more core devs than anyone else on staff, so at various points companies have chosen to put money into Python by paying people salaries to work on it. And that’s something I’m grateful for as it definitely benefitted Python in spite of this occasion misunderstanding about how the Python project is run.

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Ty for the insights. For an end-user like me, I’m quite excited about the news of a faster Python, and the latest releases are very promising.

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Python is great language used by great coorporation as World Bank,JP morgan chase…but when I saw the fund level less 5million USD per year as budget I do not understand why?

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There are many good causes in need of attention in this world, and we can be grateful that Python is among those toward which some corporations have chosen to direct a portion of their contributions.