<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/18/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Jeff Rush</b> <<a href="mailto:jeff@taupro.com">jeff@taupro.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Time is short and I'm still looking for answers to some questions about<br>cPython, so that it makes a good showing in the Forrester survey.<br><br>1) How is the project governed? How does the community make decisions
<br> on what goes into a release?<br><br> You know, I've been a member of the Python community for many years<br> -- I know about PEPs, Guido as BDFL, and +1/-1. But I've never<br> figured out exactly how -final- decisions are made on what goes
<br> into a release. I've never needed to, until now. Can someone<br> explain in one paragraph?</blockquote><div><br>Concensus is reached on python-dev or Guido says so. =)<br><br>Honestly someone proposes an idea to python-dev. It gets discussed. Either a concensus is reached and the person goes ahead and moves forward with it, or Guido explicitly says OK. Occasionally there is a minor revolt and Guido backs down, but usually that leads to the wrong decision winning out. =)
<br><br>How much extra work is needed to present to python-dev depends on the level of the change. PEP is needed for language changes. New additions to the stdlib require community concensus that it is best-of-breed. Small additions usually should get python-dev approval. Patches for fixes just happen.
<br><br>More details are in <a href="http://www.python.org/dev/intro">http://www.python.org/dev/intro</a> .<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
2) Does the language have a formal defined release plan?<br><br> I know Zope 3's release plan, every six months, but not that of<br> Python. Is there a requirement to push a release out the door<br> every N months, as some projects do, or is each release
<br> separately negotiated with developers around a planned set<br> of features?</blockquote><div><br>Latter. We aim for every 12 - 18 months, but it depends on if there are any specific features we want in a release.
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">3) Some crude idea of how many new major and minor features were<br> added in the last release? Yes, I know this is difficult -- the
<br> idea it so get some measure of the evolution/stability of cPython<br> re features. Jython and IronPython are probably changing rapidly<br> -- cPython, not such much.</blockquote><div><br> Going by <a href="http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/highlights/">
http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/highlights/</a> , roughly 8 or so major features. Don't know what to say about minor since I don't know how you want to count stdlib additions.<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
4) How many committers to the cPython core are there?<br><br> I don't have the necessary access to the pydotorg infrastructure<br> to answer this -- can someone who does help me out here?</blockquote><div><br>According to
<a href="http://www.ohloh.net/projects/26/analyses/latest/contributors">http://www.ohloh.net/projects/26/analyses/latest/contributors</a> , 92 people over the life of the project, but 51 over the last year. <br></div><br>
-Brett<br></div><br>