[python-committers] Idea: listing commercial prioritisation options as a new section in the developer guide?

[Nick Coghlan]

On 20 Sep 2015 00:02, "Antoine Pitrou" <antoine at python.org> wrote:
>
>
> It doesn't sound like the devguide is ideally the right place for it.
>
> Actually, for a guide devoted to attract new contributors, saying "hey,
> we'd really like you to contribute on a volunteer basis, but here is a
> list of people who prefer being paid to do the same thing" may send the
> wrong message.

Yeah, part of this would involve emphasising that the main thing being
prioritised commercially is writing & reviewing changes on behalf of *other
people* - I consider that a distinct pool of time from the time we
contribute because we find contributing to be an inherently rewarding
activity.

That said, one of the problems faced by folks that *do* have permission to
spend work time on contributing to CPython, but aren't yet core
contributors themselves, is that their employer may not currently have a
way to ensure they're mentored appropriately.

Just as happens with volunteers looking to contribute on their own time,
it's a problem for us as a community when someone has successfully made the
case to their employer that a fix or improvement should be contributed back
upstream on work time, only to see it languish on the tracker.

While I don't think it's reasonable to ask volunteers to prioritise
reviewing commercially developed contributions, I do think it's reasonable
to facilitate folks getting paid to mentor potential future contributors
and build direct relationships with organisations willing to pay people to
work on CPython.

> I also understand the pragmatic side of the proposal, which is that the
> devguide has an established development and contribution process where
> it is easy to propose changes and get them discussed and accepted

That's part of it, but I also think we (as in those of us with commit
privileges that are also professional developers) bear the responsibility
for deciding how transparent we want to be about the commercial aspects of
the development process that have emerged over time, rather than having
that responsibility fall on the PSF.

As a next step, I'll draft a page that lists me (and anyone else that
volunteers to be listed) to show a specific proposed structure, and give
folks something more concrete to discuss.

Cheers,
Nick.
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