Vote to promote Abhilash Raj as core developer

[barry (Barry Warsaw)]

• Promote Abhilash Raj
• Do not promote Abhilash Raj

I am formally proposing Abhilash Raj to be promoted to core developer status. Abhilash’s primary contributions will at least initially be for the email package, a library in need of additional contributors.

Abhilash is already well established as a contributor to Python. He is the project lead for GNU Mailman and serves as both a Mailman administrator and postmaster on mail.python.org. He has been instrumental in the migration from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3 on our infrastructure, and regularly helps out with postmaster duties. I have worked very closely with Abhilash since he originally came to the GNU Mailman project as a Summer of Code student. Over the years, he has continued to impress me with his technical abilities and sensibilities, his leadership, and his strong and considerate collaboration skills. When I stepped down as GNU Mailman project leader in 2017, Abhilash was the clear, unanimous choice to take over that roll.

In addition to that, he has a proven track record of contributions to the email package. I have mentored him in his recent PRs and have full confidence in his ability to manage bugs and commit directly to CPython. He has a good understanding of the workflow, policies, and procedures such rights would grant. He is kind to contributors and eagerly works with them to find the right solution.

From PEP 13:

… It is granted by receiving at least two-thirds positive votes in a core team vote that is open for one week and with no veto by the steering council."
PEP 13 – Python Language Governance | peps.python.org

Here is a list of contributions from Abhilash:

Merged PRs

Reviewed PRs:

• https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/13608
• https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/13079
• bpo-36564: Fix infinite loop in email folding logic by pganssle · Pull Request #12732 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-30681: Support invalid date format or value in email Date header by timb07 · Pull Request #10783 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-15115: Document deprecation of email.encoders in Python 3 by csabella · Pull Request #5354 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-32234: Context manager available for mailbox instances by sblondon · Pull Request #4770 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-32179: Fix handling of empty email address in header parsing by mtorromeo · Pull Request #4644 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-27321: email: don't try to replace headers that aren't set by kyrias · Pull Request #1977 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-30088: Document that existing dir structure isn't verified by mailbox.Maildir by webknjaz · Pull Request #1163 · python/cpython · GitHub
• bpo-27513: email.utils.getaddresses() now handles Header objects by ZackerySpytz · Pull Request #13797 · python/cpython · GitHub

Issues on bpo:

• Issue 37491: IndexError in get_bare_quoted_string - Python tracker
• Issue 36564: Infinite loop with short maximum line lengths in EmailPolicy - Python tracker
• Issue 29412: IndexError thrown on email.message.Message.get - Python tracker
• Issue 21315: email._header_value_parser does not recognise in-line encoding changes - Python tracker
• Issue 31445: Index out of range in get of message.EmailMessage.get() - Python tracker
• Issue 32179: Empty email address in headers triggers an IndexError - Python tracker
• Issue 34222: Email message serialization enters an infinite loop when folding non-ASCII headers with long words - Python tracker

[pganssle (Paul Ganssle)]

I know that it can be awkward to discuss someone’s capabilities in an open forum, but I’m wondering if anyone (particularly those voting -1) would be interested in explaining their vote?

I have not voted yet, mainly because I haven’t had time to review his contributions, but I can say that I think Abhilash provided useful feedback and review for this PR of mine, and if the rest of his contributions are similarly high quality (a few spot checks indicates that they are) I don’t have any objection to him joining the core team.

I will also note that we can definitely use someone knowledgeable about the email module who can provide core review and merges - it’s sprawling, complicated and I think reasonably widely used.

The reason I think it would be especially good to have some people make the case against Abhilash is that if the vote does not succeed, it would be good to have a clear metric for improvement rather than a black box. From what I’ve seen so far, the main reason I could think for not promoting Abhilash is that he does not have a very long contribution history to CPython - but that is an inherently temporary situation and it would be nice to get it on the record for if there is a second vote. If it’s something else, then it would be a helpful guide for the core devs currently mentoring Abhilash.

(P.S. I do hope that this does not come off as in any way a criticism of anyone’s behavior - I think it is 100% fair to vote without explaining. I just want to encourage a constructive outcome no matter the result of the vote.)

[vstinner (Victor Stinner)]

Previous discussion about promoting Abhilash Raj, last May: python-committers: Promote Mark Sapiro and Abhilash Raj as core developers. I gave him the bug triage permission at May 14 on the recommendation of Barry Warsaw.

[pitrou (Antoine Pitrou)]

I quickly ready through Abhilash’s PR submissions and code reviews. They look generally reasonable and competent. So I’d like to give my vote for him.

On the other hand, I see that several people voted against him becoming a core developer. Could they give some reasons? It would help me make my mind.

[barry (Barry Warsaw)]

I’m also rather surprised at the no votes, and would like some additional details if you’re so inclined to post them here. If you have questions or concerns which you don’t want to air publicly, please reach out to me via email.

[pitrou (Antoine Pitrou)]

Well… I’m gonna vote “yes” for now. Will revisit if some convincing argument pops up

[Mariatta]

+1 from me. Abhilash also came to PyCon mentored sprint for diverse beginners as a mentor for mailman project.

For the record I’ve requested that Abhilash be added to the new Python Triage team.

[berkerpeksag]

I voted “no” and I already summarized what I’m looking for when I’m voting in Vote to promote Cheryl Sabella as a core developer. If I see someone who has been active on bugs.p.o, reviewing PRs, and writing high quality patches for more than a year, I vote “yes”.

[barry (Barry Warsaw)]

As per PEP 13:

It is granted by receiving at least two-thirds positive votes in a core team vote that is open for one week and with no veto by the steering council.

With 76% yes votes, and no veto by the SC, please join me in welcoming @maxking as the latest core developer!