I have thought about this some more. I appreciate the thought (@thomas, @pf_moore) that you’d like me to be on the SC for a while longer. But it seems to me we have many excellent candidates, and after a brief discussion with the current incumbents I have decided to withdraw.
Part of my reason is that in the end, SC duty feels more like a chore to me than fun, and one of the things I’m trying to accomplish in my life post Dropbox retirement is to have more fun. To me, fun includes programming in and contributing to Python, for example the PEG parser project. But I don’t see participating in the SC as fun. (This is true for all SC members, I imagine, and an important duty it is! It’s just that I’ve done enough duty for Python in the past 30 years, and I want to focus more on having fun.)
I will still be around though! I will be reading and answering mail, sometimes reviewing PRs and participating in issues and discussions on python-ideas, python-dev, or discuss.python.org (and even Zulip and Twitter). If the new SC asks me to act as BDFL-Delegate for a PEP I’ll consider it, and if they have other questions for me I’ll try to answer them. I’ll just not be acting as an official member of the Steering Council.
I am sure that an SC without me will do just fine, especially if you all vote for Barry, Brett and Carol – they will provide continuity. I’m not endorsing other candidates, they’re all great!