While I do feel like the PSF Board and Python Packaging Council should (and am confident they will) work together in some capacity, I don’t think I presently have strong, or opinionated thoughts on if the PSF Membership pathways are sufficient.
Ideally “It’s easy to be a member” and the Sliding Scale for Supporting Membership does significantly lower that barrier to entry. But there’s still a lot of interested parties that aren’t voting PSF Members. Right now, I think it’s prudent to listen after the election and then examine input, and that’ll probably mean listening to the Packaging Council themselves and then making plans for adjustments via outreach. The existence of the Contributing Membership role is one area where outreach could be strengthened, (which is why I’d love to see a formalized nomination form for contributing members–it’s easier to build awareness of the role if a project lead nominates contributors for it. This is especially true for contributors who spend time engaging in discussions and answering questions and thus meet the requirement, but don’t feel like they do because they don’t spend 5 hours a month on code, or don’t do it consistently due to the ebbs and flows of life.)
In the PEP itself there’s a note of discussion about the best means to include interested parties, and I agree with the takeaway that at present, PSF membership is the easiest way to have common access. Adam Turner makes an important point regarding the inclusion of downstream redistributors, though I am not aware enough of the packaging landscape to know why PSF membership would not be a functional option for the wider audience of downstream distributors. Adding another body to participate in feels like it would cause more confusion than it would alleviate, especially if the concern is that those parties wouldn’t be aware of PSF membership. Having “Basic Membership” managed through python.org, and voting eligible memberships managed through https://psfmember.org is already very confusing, and a third, “python packaging membership” feels like a needless hoop when so many interested parties already work to further the PSF mission of advancing the language.
So while I’m not sure if the PSF Membership paths are sufficient, I do presently think it makes sense to have the Packaging Council vote tied to PSF Membership. This feeling is strengthen given a fair amount of resources and needs will either impact or utilize PSF Staff, Security, and Infrastructure. A strong relationship there also can help build communication about needs to help both parties catch the impact of infrastructure choices, or packaging standards from a wider perspective.
Regarding how the board and packaging council can work together: I think that the relationship should probably reflect a trust of expertise of the council, and a shared ‘listening to, and facilitating needs’, rather than trying to add an extra body to decision making.
Reading meeting summaries are helpful, but listening in to meetings gives a really nice chance to hear about an offhand thought that doesn’t make it to summary pages. While I am not a person who knows enough about packaging to weigh on packaging related decisions, I do occasionally hear from students or teachers regarding confusion about installing packages, and if a PPC decision could use insight from an educators use case I can reach out and ask teachers to join in and offer their experience.
But while that’s how I, from the outside, could envision a way for the board to help work with the PPC, I think it’s best to let the council get their bearings and during that time listen to what they need, and work to understand how best to work with one another. I worry that trying to specify too much at this stage would restrict the Council, and since it’s the inaugural group, it makes sense to let them organize and define themselves before committing to defined mechanisms of support.