PythonLabs Team Moves to ActiveState

[Guido van Rossum]

PythonLabs Team Moves to ActiveState

To all Python users and developers:

   Less than half a year ago, I moved with my team to Digital Crations, in the
   hope of finding a new permanent home for Python development. At
   Digital Creations we've done several good things for Python, such as forming
   the Python Software Foundation and the management of the Python 2.1 release.
   
   Unfortunately, Digital Creations's original plans for PythonLabs didn't 
   work out as hoped, and we weren't able to reach mutual agreement on
   workable alternative plans - despite trying for months.
   
   I am proud to have found a new home for my entire team: starting
   today, Tim Peters, Barry Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, Fred Drake and myself
   are working for ActiveState. We will be spending part of our
   time on core Python development (including Jython and Mailman) and
   part of our time on Python infrastructure improvements that also
   benefit ActiveState's efforts such as Komodo and Python.NET.
   
   Python will remain Open Source; ActiveState has no desire to
   monetize or brand the Python language or specific Python
   distributions. All future work we do on Python as ActiveState
   employees will be owned by the PSF.
   
   We're excited to be working for ActiveState: they are one of the companies
   most committed to Python, and they have great products! Plus, we know
   they have deep financial backing. We trust that ActiveState will
   provide a stable home for Python for many years.
   
   ActiveState has also offered to take over hosting of the
   python.org and starship sites. On behalf of the Python community,
   we're grateful for this support of the two prime community sites for
   Python, and we expect to be implementing the transitions shortly.
   
   These are exciting times for the PythonLabs team - and also for Python
   and its community. Mainstream successes for Python are showing up
   everywhere, and we're proud to be a part of such a smart and friendly
   community. A great year lies ahead!
   
   Note, however, that moving to ActiveState will have some minor effects
   on the future of Python development. ActiveState is concerned about
   the seeming rift between the Perl and Python communities and wants
   to do its best to help the Open Source scripting community work together.
   In order to make it easier for Perl programmers to transition to Python,
   we will add optional curly braces for Python. While we are fully aware
   of the effect this will have on Python usability, we have finally decided
   to bite the bullet and accept that until this happens, Python will never
   be popular.

   Barry has already approved PEP 357, Adding Block Delimiters to Python.
   Since we are heavily commited to backwards compatability, a transition
   period of three months has been mandated. For those who want the changes
   to start sooner, we added "from __future__ import block_delimiters" in
   Python 2.1, which will be released about two weeks from now.

   Larry Wall and I agreed that now it makes sense for Perl to have 
   the Perl compiler enforce correct indentation in Perl sources. This
   will probably be implemented in Perl 5.7, and will certainly be in Perl 6.
   Also, after some talks with Larry, I've decided to adopt the Perl 
   numerical model for Python. The Perl model is simple, predictable and
   easy to explain. This is a small enough change that it does not need
   a PEP, and Moshe will implement it before 2.1rc1 is out.
   
   Now that the catalog-sig finally has a fully working product, ActiveState
   decided they will base a CPAN competitor on it. This server will be able
   to deal with both Perl and Python modules. While the client will remain
   completely Open Source, it was decided that the server will remain
   ActiveState proprietary. While it is true that the original server was
   written by the Python community, ActiveState has put a lot of effort
   into making it general enough, and we need to justify the costs somehow.

   --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)