Packaging Project Manager Monthly update- December

Here are the updates for the month of December-

  • Shared user feedback summary with the community. The update is available in this blog post- Python Software Foundation News: PyPI User Feedback Summary

  • Shared development roadmap with the packaging working group. This document is under review and will be shared with the community once the plan is approved.

  • Engaged with the packaging PEP authors to understand current status of PEP implementation.

  • Figuring out how/whether feature requests from the recent surveys correspond to existing feature requests on Github. This process will take few more weeks.

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Thanks for your work and the update, @smm !

As a general suggestion, I think it might be really helpful if you could summarize the next steps and your plans/anything else the community should know coming up in the next month or so, in addition to the updates on what you’ve done. I really liked the bullets you included at the end of your blog post on the surveys to that effect, and I think something like that might be a great fit here too.

Also, I have a few followup questions:

Given this appears to be a multiple-month timeline judging from the process so far, and given the principles of inclusive, open source development, I’m wondering if the document needs to be kept private until it is approved rather than accessible for the packaging community at large to at least view the draft of (with that status made clear), in order to keep tabs on its development and offer feedback before it is finalized? Or maybe providing some more detail about the goals, scope and audience for this document would make clear the reasons why this is and the next steps? Also, I’m still not certain if this is more focused just on PyPI, or more broadly on the PyPA ecosystem in general…some more detail, or a link to the same, would be super helpful here.

Maybe it is just me, as I’m certainly a newer member of the packaging community and have only authored one packaging PEP thus far and been active on the Packaging Discourse here for the past few months, and wouldn’t call myself an expert or anything. However, for what its worth, I don’t think I’ve heard of the Packaging WG before now. Are most or all the key stakeholders active in that group and have a chance to view, provide input and build consensus before it is finalized? Has there been enough outreach about that group to ensure the intended audience is aware of it (not sure if its only aimed at the top packaging experts, or a broader audience)?

If there are reasons this is the way it is I understand, but I think it would be helpful to explain a bit more about the process and next steps, especially for newer members of the packaging community like myself, which would seem to dovetail well with your role. Thanks!

As a new PEP author, I’d be curious to know more about this—was this focused on draft PEPs, approved PEPs or both? How did you reach out? How many authors did you reach? What sorts of things did you aim to discuss? What did you find (or, if, when and how do you plan to share your findings, if appropriate)?

In particular, I’m the current primary author of PEP 639, which has been worked on for the past couple years as a packaging PEP updating and extending various packaging-related specs and touch many parts of the packaging ecosystem. I don’t think I heard anything from you, but maybe I wasn’t in scope for this or it came via a channel I was not expecting? Some clarification here would be helpful, to make sure I didn’t miss something. Thanks!

As someone who started out in FOSS triaging issues and then managing the issue tracker for a very active project, I just want to comment that this is certainly no easy task, especially if you don’t happen to have deep experience working with the project in question, but it is also a great way to become such so I commend your efforts here. Thanks for sharing the document; as mentioned, I’m no expert myself but it might be worth mentioning if there is a way any volunteers can help you if they and you so desire.

Thanks again!

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@CAM-Gerlach Thank you for the feedback. I will try and share future steps along with the monthly updates.

Regarding the packaging Working Group, you can find details about them here- PackagingWG - PSF Wiki. I have taken on board comments about sharing development plans and the WG itself. I hope to share the development plans next week.

I contacted authors of PEPs that have been approved but not yet implemented. The aim of this exercise was to see if anything could be done to move the PEP towards completion. I contacted them by email. It is too early to share other details at the moment.

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