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Nominee for 2026 Python Packaging Council Election

Pradyun Gedam

  • Previous Packaging Council Service: New Packaging Council member
  • Employer: Bloomberg
  • Other Affiliations: pip maintainer; PyPA member; PyPI moderator; CPython core developer
  • Nominee Statement:

      Hi! I'm Pradyun (@pradyunsg). I've been an active contributor in the Python packaging community for nearly a decade -- most notably as a maintainer of pip, an active participant in the interoperability standards, a PyPI moderator, and as a co-organizer of every Python Packaging Summit so far.

      I got involved in this community back in 2016, after engaging on a heavily-requested feature in pip. Since then, I've been lucky to collaborate with a lot of wonderful people in the community and made meaningful improvements to many packaging tools.

      I like doing this work because getting something right in Python's packaging tooling can improve things for an enormous number of people -- and because doing it well requires learning about low-level details about how computers work as well as collaboration skills to help one work with the many stakeholders.

      As a co-author of PEP 772, which established the Python Packaging Council (PPC), I played a role in setting the mandate and expectations of what the PPC will do. I'm putting forward my nomination because I want to help actually deliver on them by actively setting an early positive trajectory.

      Experience

      Over the years, I have been up to a lot in this space!

      • Maintainer of pip, Flit, and many lower-level libraries that implement the standards (packaging, pyproject-hooks, installer).
      • Editor of https://packaging.python.org.
      • [Co-]Author of nine Python packaging PEPs.
      • Co-chair of the Packaging Summits at PyCon US and EuroPython.
      • Moderator on PyPI.
      • Adviser to many Python package maintainers on packaging issues.
      • Collaborator with Python redistributors to improve the Python experience.
      • Helped establish governance structures for Python packaging as we outgrew our informal structures (including this election!).
      • CPython Core Developer since 2021.
      • PSF Fellow since 2019.

      Focus areas

      If elected, I'd focus on what I believe are the three most important things for the inaugural PPC:

      1) Supporting Python packaging tools

      By establishing clear processes around technical decision-making with existing contributors, helping improve the security posture of various projects, and through identifying funding opportunities with the PSF.

      Supporting healthy maintenance of these projects is important because these serve as the foundations for the Python's package ecosystem. I expect that defining a clear relationship between the PPC and Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) projects will be an important piece of the puzzle here, since that relationship is not fully defined currently.

      2) Improving Python packaging's user experience

      Through improving communication with users, working to identify users' pain points, and working with the tool maintainers to address them.

      I expect that part of improving the user experience will involve the PPC expanding the scope of what is considered "Python packaging" -- beyond the tools that are used to build, distribute and install wheels to the broader ecosystem of tools that are used to build, distribute, and install Python software. Strengthening partnerships with sibling communities will help us in this area.

      3) Maintaining the interoperability of the Python packaging ecosystem

      Through ensuring that the standards are clear and implemented correctly in the tools, improving the standardization process, and identifying areas where "tooling divergence" is preventing improvements.

      The stewardship of the Python packaging's interoperability standards comes with this responsibility. It is important that the standards evolve as the needs of the ecosystem evolve, while also ensuring we're enabling the ecosystem to benefit from innovative approaches (as has happened through Poetry, Hatch, PDM, uv and other tools).

      A lot of the PPC's work will involve collaborating with individuals and groups who will know a lot more than I do -- I don't think I have the answers for exactly how we'd do all of the above. What I do bring is a decade of doing this work in the open, a habit of listening, a commitment to putting the ecosystem and its users first, and a willingness to do the unglamorous work.

      Having helped design it, I care a great deal about the PPC earning the community's trust -- I'd be honoured to help it do exactly that as a part of the inaugural council.

      Thank you for reading!

  • Nomination Statements:
    • Nomination by: Brett Cannon

      I have had the privilege of working with Pradyun as both a co-maintainer of 'packaging' and as a co-author on multiple PEPs. In all instances he has been a pleasure to work with; friendly with good insight and getting things done when he says he will.

    • Nomination by: Pablo Galindo Salgado

      I’m nominating Pradyun Gedam for the inaugural Python Packaging Council.

      Pradyun has been at the centre of Python packaging for nearly a decade. He has maintained pip since 2017, drove the rollout of its next-generation dependency resolver, and maintains foundational tooling across the ecosystem (installer, Furo, sphinx-autobuild). On the governance side, he co-authored PEP 609, which gave the PyPA its governance structure, and PEP 772, which establishes the very council this election seats. He co-chairs the Packaging Summit at PyCon US, where much of the ecosystem’s cross-tool coordination actually happens.

      We worked together at Bloomberg, and I’ve seen first-hand how much he thinks about packaging as a whole system rather than just the tools he maintains. He cares about the user experience and is willing to put in the work to find consensus among maintainers and stakeholders with different constraints. As a CPython core developer and PSF Fellow he is also well placed to coordinate between the packaging community and the core team, which is what this council is for.

      He has my full support, and I hope he’ll have yours too.

    • Nomination by: Jannis Leidel

      I nominate Pradyun Gedam because he has been doing the work behind Python packaging for a decade and helped write the governance proposals that led us here. He has maintained pip since 2016, moderates PyPI, maintains pyproject-hooks, Flit, and Spack, created installer, and is a CPython core developer. He co-authored PEP 609, which established PyPA’s governance model, and PEP 772, which creates this Council. Pradyun and I have worked together on Packaging Summits at PyCon US and EuroPython, where I have seen how seriously he takes the work of getting people with very different needs into the same conversation. I helped start PyPA and now work on conda, so I particularly value that he understands both PyPA tools and packaging systems outside PyPA. The first Council will have to make PEP 772 work in practice, and I want Pradyun there.

    • Nomination by: Alyssa Coghlan

      Pradyun has a long history of contributing positively to the Python packaging ecosystem, not only in the form of software improvements and proposal reviews, but also in stepping back and considering how the combined state of our tools, processes, and documentation is impacting the Python developer experience for both new users and experienced ones. His insight and personal influence would be valuable additions to the inaugural Python Packaging Council.

    • Nomination by: Carol Willing

      I endorse Pradyun Gadem for a position on the inaugural Python Packaging Council. Pradyun demonstrates effective organizational skills, thoughtful communication, deep knowledge of packaging tools, and experience across many domains (including web, data science, science, and dev ops). He's co-organized the Packaging Summits for a number of years which has helped move packaging discussions forward. I highly recommend Pradyun.

      Carol Willing PSF Fellow, Python core team, JupyterHub core team, pyOpenSci advisor, former PSF board and Python Steering Council member

    • Nomination by: Ee Durbin

      I am happy to support Pradyun's nomination to the Python Packaging Council.

      As a maintainer of PyPI and the Python Software Foundation's Community Infrastructure, I have had many opportunities to work with Pradyun. Reflecting on all of these experiences, I know that Pradyun will bring a committed, thoughtful, and considerate effort to the work at hand. These qualities have been ever present in the contributions I have watched him make to Python packaging as a maintainer of pip, CPython core developer, unstoppable documentarian, and colleague.

    • Nomination by: Donald Stufft

      I'm happy to nominate Pradyun and draft this statement of support for his nomination. Starting from the very beginning when Pradyun was a GSoC student I've consistently been impressed with both his drive to improve packaging and his willingness to jump in and tackle the hard problems. Pradyun is regularly a voice of reason, and has always approached problems with compassion and a willingness to understand, and I think would make an excellent member of the council.