[Python-Dev] PEPs from non-core devs now need a sponsor

[Steve Holden]

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019 at 9:04 PM Steve Dower <steve.dower at python.org> wrote:

> On 05Mar2019 1245, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > How much effort does it take to sponsor a PEP? I'm not a core dev, but
> > I can help someone with the work of writing and publishing. So if, in
> > that hypothetical situation, some (very busy) core dev were willing to
> > say "yeah, go ahead, put my name on it", would that be sufficient? If
> > so, it shouldn't be a problem to require this - any proposal with
> > enough support to be worth PEPing should have at least one person
> > who's willing to have his/her name in the headers.
>
> For the record, now that he's joined the conversation, Chris is who I
> had in mind when I invented the term "PEP triager" in my email :)
>
> If we had a way of appointing people who we trust to be non-core dev
> sponsors of PEPs, I'd nominate him. Though I suspect he's well known
> enough to the council that they'd accept his support of a PEP as
> sufficient to consider it from someone who's otherwise completely
> unknown. There are always grey areas in any policy.
>

If core devs trust someone enough to let them act as a PEP sponsor, they
probably know at least one core dev well enough to get them to add their
name as sponsor on the condition that they are only responsiible for
ensuring their "proxy" (?) responds adequately and in a sufficiently timely
manner.

I don't have a great deal to add to most conversations here, but I would
urge all concerned to consider Brett's point, from my own now distant
experience as a PSF chair. If I may paraphrase him, it's easier to change
the rules when someone wants or needs to do something outside their current
scope than it is to devise bullet-proof rules. It was only after I learned
this lesson that much of the constitutional lawyering in the PSF was
(gradually) replaced by useful mission-directed volunteer-led activity.

Please don't concern yourselves too much about process, but instead focus
on the desired results. If lawyering is needed, delegate it to the PSF! I'd
rather have you pushing Python forward ;-).

Finally, thanks again to everyone who contributes, particularly for
managing to hide a great deal of Python's modern-day complexity from those
who neither want nor need to know about it. Ultimately I think that is
perhaps the biggest factor fuelling the language's continued growth.

Kind regards
Steve Holden
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