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Google is now a Visionary Sponsor of the Python Software Foundation

365 points by Ldorigo 6y ago

a-query-unknown 6y ago
Sure took them long enough.
dontchooseanick 6y ago
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
- DSingularity 6y ago
  Is that even a feasible strategy for languages? I mean I get it for APIs... but we are talking about a language.
  - pansa2 6y ago
    Visual J++? > Some observers have remarked that this incompatibility appears to have been a deliberate aim of Microsoft's, in an attempt to at least slow the advance of Sun's Java technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B
    - ppseafield 6y ago
      But Microsoft got sued and lost hard on that one. They created C# and .Net as competition, but they hardly extinguished Java.
    - santoshalper 6y ago
      That failed spectacularly.
  - doof_warrior 6y ago
    Of course. The more they break Python compatibility, the more reasons new projects have to use the nearest competitor.. which is Go.
    - enjeyw 6y ago
      I would have thought the nearest competitor to Python was Ruby, JS or Julia, depending on the application.
Google234 6y ago
Hopefully Google can push the foundation to stop adding bad complicated language features like pattern matching or the walrus operator to the language.
- vletal 6y ago
  Well, the is still C and other languages if you do not like complicated high level features.
  - Google234 6y ago
    Um, C has complicate low level features. Not sure how that is better.
- josefx 6y ago
  You might be looking at the wrong language for that. Can I interest you in some Java instead? Do you want it to Go?
  - pansa2 6y ago
    > You might be looking at the wrong language for that. You’re right, Python is not a simple language at all. Yet that’s how it’s widely perceived - I’m not sure why.
    - superbcarrot 6y ago
      Because it's easy to get started with and the complexity that you're exposed to increases with your experience and technical needs instead of being frontloaded. This isn't the same as being simple but it's understandable how the two can be confused.
    - _tom_ 6y ago
      Perhaps because it's relatively easy to get started?
    - eznzt 6y ago
jdorfman 6y ago
This sets a great example for other cloud providers to emulate. I'm really proud of Ewa Jodlowska (PSF Executive Director) and her team for making this happen for the Python community.
pansa2 6y ago
> The Python Steering Council and Python Software Foundation will work together to contract a developer This would represent a significant increase in the number of people paid to work on the Python language. Two years ago it was estimated that it only had (the equivalent of) two full-time employees working on it. https://discuss.python.org/t/official-list-of-core-developers/924 https://discuss.python.org/t/official-list-of-core-developer...
- josephg 6y ago
  Its such a statement about the free rider problem that python can have only 2 people working fulltime on it. Python is one of the most popular languages in the world - there's got to be trillions of dollars worth of companies depending on it. Small improvements to the language would result in millions of dollars of productivity gains in aggregate globally. And yet ... collectively we can only find enough money to pay two full time salaries?! Seriously?
  - edwardwatson 6y ago
    Python is as popular as it is because it's free, not because it's good. If companies had to contribute, many would pick something else.
  - tasubotadas 6y ago
    So... why don't you pay?
    - bzb6 6y ago
      Someone else should!
    - feanaro 6y ago
      Why do you assume he isn't paying? The payment should obviously be proportional, though. You can't expect a single individual to finance what a gigantic multibillion corporation could.
pm90 6y ago
More money for OSS is always great. Does the PSF employ full time engineers to work on Python? For some reason my mental model of core Python contributors was that they worked at a company which paid them to work mostly on the language, but also on other company specific things. Maybe because that’s how Golang seems to work? IDK, genuinely curious.
- pansa2 6y ago
  Don’t know why this is downvoted. AFAIK most core developers spend, at most, 20% of their paid time on the language / 80% on other things, not (as you might think) 80% / 20%.
naebother 6y ago
Great, looking forward to migrating to Go once Python 4 is finally shutdown in 2023 ;) But, yeah, ultimately I'm glad any company is contributing to upkeep the language, but the whole "Visionary Sponsors", "Sustainability Sponsors", "Maintaining Sponsors", "Contributing Sponsors", etc distinction between them seems very unnecessary.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  Python 4 will be the last breaking change - it moves away from Unicode to ASCII bytestrings :D
cybert00th 6y ago
While I agree this can only benefit the Python community - I'll reserve judgement as to whether in the long term this proves to be beneficial for the next 3 to 5 years.
doof_warrior 6y ago
Google has ZERO incentive for the python ecosystem to flourish. Remember the breaking 3.0 change came when Guido was an employee there, and go was starting to get mainstream traction. I agree with the embrace-extinguish crowd. The strategy will be to introduce a huge breaking change in the next release. This is a corporation. They don't do things for free. What started out as a "free" browser turned into a vehicle to capture a monopoly on internet video. What makes you think they dont have a long term plan to profit from python?
- yunohn 6y ago
  >> Guido was an employee there, and go was starting to get mainstream traction. So your conspiracy theory is that Guido, the BDFL at the time, colluded with Google, who use python for numerous products, to destroy python and popularize Golang......?
  - doof_warrior 6y ago
    Yes. Track most breaking changes and broken libraries to the authors and you will see a Google connection.
    - bzb6 6y ago
      That’s interesting. You should write a post or something with all the links, because if you’re right that’s going to be spicy.
- gerash 6y ago
  I'd bet someone here would write some QAnon-level conspiracy theory on how this is bad news and here it is.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Changing to 3.0 hardly killed Python. The strategy to get rid of a project is not to introduce breaking changes, but just let it die through neglect. You don't need a scheme to kill a plant. You can just stop watering it.
sandGorgon 6y ago
I wish that Google, Dropbox and Instagram would invest some of this money in Pypy as well - which has been struggling for funds for quite a while. In fact, I have nothing but the deepest of respect for the Devs who built a version of python better than the "officially sanctioned one" without having any financial support.
- nt2h9uh238h 6y ago
  I'm very confident open-source projects (also like VueJS, Nuxt, and many NPM packages) are some of the highest-impact donations and philantrophy anyone could make.
  - elygre 6y ago
    I hope that isn’t true. For the sake of starving children, political dissidents, victims of war, the environment, people struck by disease, and many more, I really hope that isn’t true.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      From a multiplicative effect and the current lack of funds it very well could be. Small improvements to development (reduction in bugs, reduction in cpu waste, etc) to things as widely used as these could mean that your $1 donated got multiplied millions of times in dev time saved. This massive leverage is sort of unique to open source because it’s non-rivalrous. Resources you donate like food, shelter, etc can only help a limited number of people. Note that this analysis of highest-impact does not make any moral judgements about which is more important. I personally would rather pay to help build plumbing in Uganda rather than this, but it definitely won’t have the same leverage.
      - learnstats2 6y ago
        > $1 donated got multiplied millions of times in dev time saved. Love that trickle-down economics, Step 1: less time spent on dev tasks Step 2: ?????? Step 3: end war, end hunger
varispeed 6y ago
About time. These multi-billion companies exploited open source software and essentially got free labour without having to pay salaries and taxes by cynically promoting open source movement manipulating developers into giving up their hard work for free (exposure). Hopefully the time will come that these companies will make big payouts to all people who where manipulated into contributing into "open source software" (meaning free labour for big corporations).
- waynesonfire 6y ago
  Comparing open source development to a forced labor camp is a stretch. I wouldn't hold my breath for a "big payout" -- a company will invest in what they find is necessary. Maybe it's a gold sponsor, maybe a junior engineer hire or more. The market is efficient in my view and everyone involved benefits. The disconnect I see is the delusion that open source contributor(s) are owed something because someone else found the software useful. They seem to so quickly forget that they picked the liscense and that liscense is being used as designed. Your narrative is not productive. Instead, maybe advocate for cultural change in what it means to adopt open source technology, eliminate barriers for monetary or other forms of support. It's unlikely the intent of adoters is to be laughing all the way to the bank as you're claiming.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    My point is that big companies promote open source movement as a way to save on R&D spending. They'll see what people make for free and then pick up what sticks without paying anything for the effort. In many countries you can't hire someone to do work for free, even if they agree and you have at least pay minimum wage. The same should apply for open source software. Big companies should not be allowed to use it without reimbursing all contributors even if they license the code as public domain. This needs to stop as this is a modern way of labour exploitation. People make literally billions of off python and its time they share that profits with the developers and pay appropriate taxes!
    - drstewart 6y ago
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Goodbye Python.
nexthash 6y ago
A lot of people here are accusing Google of embrace, extend, and extinguish, but you have to realize that the incentives here are different from Big Tech's point of view. I'd first like to point out Python is a programming language, not an internet standard or file format. It gets its utility merely from the ability to develop in it, even without an established ecosystem or network effect. The barrier to jump in, or fork off and start over is far lower compared to a browser or file format. So what's in it for Big Tech? Well, in a situation where controlling the technology or suppressing it is difficult due to the low costs of starting over, it is in their best interest to promote the ecosystem rather than control it. When they put in the time, money, and engineers to make it better the return on investment can be massive, because of the help they get from the community to grow, maintain, and keep compatible this core component at less cost than if they did it themselves. The incentives align and benefit everyone, especially if there is a fair governance system mediating between all parties involved. The biggest threat to an open source project is therefore not Big Tech collaboration, but project abandonment and lack of maintenance. I hope this makes everyone a little more optimistic about the direction of open source, especially as companies realize the real value it can have for all involved.
- tal8d 6y ago
  A company can damage an open source project in a number of creative ways that have nothing to do with file formats. One word: Oracle. OpenOffice vs LibreOffice is a pretty good example of plausibly deniable sabotage that would enjoy a bonus with the number of people interjecting, index finger raised, with "Actually, Hanlon's razor..." To be fair to Oracle, Sun didn't help that situation at all, Oracle just ratcheted it up.
  - konjin 6y ago
    Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
    - higerordermap 6y ago
      This needs a wikipedia entry.
b0tzzzzzzman 6y ago
Oh great, I am sure they won't ask for anything in return. Some tele3_etey here, some downloads there, and before you know it.. TLDR long rant ... Boiled down. G00gl3 didn't do this selflessly. No praise, no PR, no prepared BS.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I used to try and raise funds for the UK pycon (I was very bad at it) and my biggest takeaway was that most devs were infavour of their company forking over some cash, but "charity" was a tough sell internally. The best results was selling "booths" at the conference. But that had more cost to the sponsor than just the cash we asked for. I have been mulling on Something that makes it less charity - purchasing a "not really support" option. This might be a annual membership, in return for which you get ... early access to annual roadmap pdf. Or an online video from the main devs explaining what they are doing for five minutes (#) What if there existed something to Make the above easy and simply to do - a small foundation who's job is to keep membership rolls and accept payments from companies on behalf of any foss project that signs up (it's something I imagine patreon could offer). They then ensure that the (minimal contract) is adhered to in some manner. (#) Seriously - you could set up a zoom call with 1-5 devs and just hit record once a year - I promise that 99% will see this as unbearable imposition and then talk for two hours. And that's "actionable paid insights into the future of this tool we depend on" So the point being, if your FOSS project gets traction, then sign up to this foss-patreon, tell everyone to click to subscribe and you might might get a sponsor or two.
- 0xfaded 6y ago
  I've been in a similar place raising funds for a makerspace. Sponsorship is a marketing expense for a company and can be accounted for as a cost of doing business. A private donation is hit by income tax and, where I live, depending on the structure VAT. I used to be 100% against tax deductible contributions to not-for-profits. I've turned 180 on this. Citizens are much better at allocating funds to worthy causes than a central government. In the case of our Makerspace, we couldn't get any public funding because we didn't fit into a predefined category such as a "sports team", and operating a garage full of tools could be seen as competing with private industry. Somehow there was money available for the lawyers who delivered that opinion to the local government though.
  - alexchamberlain 6y ago
    In the UK, a company can deduct a charitable donation from its profits before calculating income tax. For an individual, the charity can claim the basic rate tax the individual paid (Gift Aid) and higher rate tax payers can claim the higher rate taxes using their self assessment, so in round numbers, it doesn't really matter who makes the donation. That being said, it relies on there being a UK charity, which a lot of software foundations are not. (Aside: I work for a US company that does support US foundations, as well as employ a few CPython core devs)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cyberpsybin 6y ago
Python to be discontinued in 3 years. RIP.
olau 6y ago
Thanks, Google!
ElectricMind 6y ago
Can we now expect "greed" and " privacy violation" as in built features of the language, please? Thanks
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Pretty sure one day they'll add telemetry so Google will know what and when you are running...
pansa2 6y ago
> to ensure future funding and volunteer hours are used efficiently and effectively. One of the reasons that Python’s development has been so haphazard in the past few years is because the language is primarily developed by volunteers, and the philosophy has been that “you can’t tell volunteers what to work on”. I wonder if something’s going to change there.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Google paying for approximately 1 developer isn’t going to change that the vast majority of Python work is done by volunteers who the PSF isn’t in a position to direct, no.
  - pansa2 6y ago
    How are they planning to “ensure volunteer hours are used effectively” if they can’t direct those volunteers?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      There is presumably some volunteer work of some kind done directly for PSF, which they can direct, but most of the Python development work isn't done that way. You can probably improve (ensure is to strong of a term) the effectiveness of outside volunteer development in a number of ways, though, such as improving community communication of priorities and improving processes around accepting, reviewing, and providing feedback on contributed code.
    - bregma 6y ago
      The volunteer hours are used to offer contributions. Those contributions are accepted or rejected. If you control what gets accepted or rejected, you control the definition of how the volunteer hours are used effectively in terms of the final result. Remember: "open source" has never meant anyone can get changes upstreamed. It has always only meant anyone can use the source downstream. This confusion has resulted in a lot of indignant outrage by armchair contributors.
- 6y ago
yhoneycomb 6y ago
uh oh
hexo 6y ago
Meh, even Microsoft seems to be better at sponsoring open source projects.
smitty1e 6y ago
Terry Jones, personifying GvR's brainchild, sits alone. Eric Idle, representing Google, lights far too close to him and begins: "Does your wife Go? Is she a Goer?"[1] (This is, after all, Python thread, no?) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_Nudge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_Nudge
isodev 6y ago
It’s good to see some of those ad money going back to OSS. Google owns its entire existence to technology and innovations created outside of Google.
- enneff 6y ago
  Google has been putting a lot of money into open source for decades, in many different ways.
asah 6y ago
I guess Go isn't killing Python, hunh.
vnparker 6y ago
"to contract a developer to help CPython determine what needs to take priority through analytical metrics as well as helping CPython understand how backlog can be addressed. The role will also be responsible for surveying maintainers to paint a better landscape of CPython, which will be used to ensure future funding and volunteer hours are used efficiently and effectively." This will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare that increases the power of the existing cabal, most of whom already do not provide any meaningful code contributions.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  > through analytical metrics That sounds very "Google." They tend to be quite data-driven. Seems to have worked for them. I tend to be a bit sloppier, myself.
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Google has earned billions thanks to techs like python, and never contributed much to it compared to what it gained. Then suddenly this. Now I'm wondering if MS hiring Guido triggered some reaction to not loose control of what is currently one of the most popular language in the world. Or something else I don't know about. I really want to rejoice. My favorite language gets $ 350k. Yet I can't help but be suspicious of philanthropy coming from big players. I'm getting cynical and always look for a PR, strategic investments or counter attacks.
- peter_retief 6y ago
  Everyone uses Python it is probably the most used language ever. I think it is really nice that Google gave the organisation some cash. If Google are trying to buy some goodwill in the developer community it is working.
- bla3 6y ago
  It's probably "now" because it's the sponsorship program got revamped, see https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship-new/ https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship-new/ They probably get their logo on the python.org website somewhere, and $350k isn't a ton of money. p The reason is PR. Still, good for the python foundation to have a program that allows it to harvest some of the PR budget out there.
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    Right. It's a good thing for the psf and it doesn't look like there a string attached.
  - iudqnolq 6y ago
    I normally think overanalyzing where organizations spend their money is misguided, but I was surprised that the largest dollar amount on the infographic was spent "strengthening trademarks". Here's what I found under the details link. Does anyone understand what this actually means? > One major component of the PSF’s mission is protecting Python-related intellectual property. To strengthen the PSF’s trademarks and copyrights for Python, PyCon, and PyPI, the PSF spent over $198,000 USD in 2019 and $77,000 through October 2020.
bigodbiel 6y ago
can we expect better/official integration with android platform?
ziofill 6y ago
I am shocked that Google gets so much praise for giving so little, but I’m even more shocked about the hypocrisy of other giants (e.g. Microsoft) Who give what, 60k?
vendiddy 6y ago
Many who complain about tech companies using open source without giving back will also complain when they start sponsoring it.
pdimitar 6y ago
I have seen numerous current and ex Googlers here in HN (in the past) claim that Python is still very prevalent among Google's source code base so this is not at all surprising; was bound to happen at one point. Whether they have any other hidden agendas is pure speculation. Time will tell. It's my opinion that they are simply making sure that a technology they are very heavily invested in doesn't bleed most of its brains out.
z77dj3kl 6y ago
Google has in the order of 2^16 software engineers, and it's hungry for more. It makes complete sense to invest and promote projects and programming languages that are heavily used within Google, just to make hiring easier and not having to train everyone up on some obscure stuff. I think that's one of the main reasons they've been pushing stuff like protobuf and gRPC out there: just so that people outside have some exposure when they end up getting hired.
corruptedX 6y ago
Finally. After so long.
abrowne 6y ago
Does Google even use Python 3? I thought they were moving things from Python 2 to Go. (And Chromium build and debug scripts still use Python 2 AFAIK.)
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  Any large organization is already using virtually everything. My employer, for example, is much smaller than Google and we are using at least a dozen programming languages. It's kind of a given that they're using Python 3 somewhere.
yannoninator 6y ago
This is all perfectly fine, surely this would not happen to Rust any time soon. Nothing to see here, just another big tech giant sinking its teeth deeper into the direction of a programming language. I welcome this new power grab from Google, bravo.
- gtirloni 6y ago
  Although a small amount of cynism is warranted, do you have any evidence that this indeed the case?
  - yannoninator 6y ago
    Shouldn't we be suspicious of big tech companies bearing gifts like this? You wouldn't throw $350K and ask nothing in return.
ta988 6y ago
Google has one director in the newly created Kotlin Foundation. Just posted the link to their faq here so we don't hijack the discussion here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26124054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26124054
gyformat 6y ago
I'm amazed at the number of people praising Google, which is giving a comparatively small sum to a finished late stage project. Many core developers have given an equivalent of that sum in free labor and receive no praise. On the contrary, a comment in this very thread accuses them of being "white males". Secondly, just "giving money to OSS" is meaningless. It depends on how it is used, who pulls the strings in the background and long term effects on the health of the volunteer part (who has done virtually all of the meaningful work in Python). People cite gcc and the Linux kernel. The situation is quite different. Sponsorship has started early by companies like SuSE, RedHat and Cygnus, who at the time were aligned with the original OSS values. The means of sponsorship was hiring top developers directly, bypassing foundations and councils. The is pretty different from the bureaucratic process that is being envisioned here.
bratah 6y ago
Isn't 350k salary of an engineer in silicon valley?
sitkack 6y ago
Watch out people! This is has been their long-game-plan all along, they are gonna switch Python to two-space indentation as mandatory. Big Tech Must Be Stopped!
dlor 6y ago
All the overthinking on motivations here is entertaining :) Disclosure: I'm the Googler that got this funded. The process was roughly: - We have some extra budget at the end of the year! What are some ways we can spend this to get results while giving back to OSS? - Hey PSF, do you have any ideas for what you could do with some funding? - Looks good to me! We're just getting started, but we're working on ways to make this all more sustainable, scalable, and less ad-hoc. If you have ideas here, please reach out! I'm dlorenc at google dot com, or join in the OpenSSF (openssf.org)! We discuss these topics and more in the Securing Critical Projects WG, info here: https://github.com/ossf/wg-securing-critical-projects/ https://github.com/ossf/wg-securing-critical-projects/
- WORMS_EAT_WORMS 6y ago
  Always critics to everything and Google has grown big enough to be fun to hate. There's plenty of things to criticize what happens at your organization these days -- but this isn't one of them. Congrats
- vlag10 6y ago
  You are at the wrong address. The PSF has nothing to do with Python core. The proper way is to hire devs with proven track record and let them work 100% on the project.
  - dlor 6y ago
    I think that's what's happening here - the PSF will be hiring someone to work 100% on core CPython for a year.
- oefrha 6y ago
  Thank you. Google has been sponsoring PSF for at least a decade -- cleared mentioned in TFA -- without much fuss; now the sponsorship level is upgraded ($90k to $150k?) and all of a sudden there's an uproar about Google taking over, shutting down (???), adding telemetry (?????), blah blah. The conspiracy theorists suddenly come out of the woodwork, the driveby haters (who I doubt even has any interest in Python) predictably dish out a stream of low effort Google memes... What a tedious thread to read, which is unfortunately just one example of the not even recent quality down spiral in any thread related to any big corp, regardless of whether there's a shred of connection between the topic and what certain people are angry about. To be clear, I'm not another guy with no interest in Python just seizing the opportunity to complain. I care about Python deeply and have quite a few patches in core over the years. Edit: I probably got the sponsorship dollar amounts wrong. The point stands.
kevindong 6y ago
The list of sponsors for the PSP [0] is surprisingly short considering how relatively affordable it is [1]: Visionary: $150k (this is the level created for Google) Sustainability: $90k Maintaining: $60k Contributing: $30k Supporting: $15k Partner: $7.5k Participating: $3.75k Associate: $1.5k [0]: https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors/ https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors/ [1]: https://www.python.org/sponsors/application/ https://www.python.org/sponsors/application/
tarruda 6y ago
> CPython Developer in Residence Can someone explain what this means?
alain94040 6y ago
Here's a suggestion for really funding open source. Donations have produced minuscule results. I think we agree the engineers want their employer to fund open source. It's up to us to establish a new normal: if your company relies on open source technologies, you are expected to give back 0.1% of your revenue to open source projects. That's it. Obviously, the challenge is to go from today's situation, where 0 companies give 0.1% of their revenue to open source foundations, to 1. Maybe an open source startup will be the first. Then a second. Then maybe the Google engineers can pressure Google to join this program. And maybe, just maybe, in 10 years, it's become expected, and most tech companies do it. (a) 0.1% is an example, chosen to be low enough that it doesn't impact the financial results of the company, but large enough that it dwarfs all current donations to open source. (b) if you are worried about the complexity of donating to multiple open source projects, you can imagine that a company could donate its share in one chunk to some open source foundation, which then redistributes among individual open source projects.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
m0derator 6y ago
Guys, let's be honest. Python is DYING. Right here, right now. And this is very sad for me, because in my opinion Python is one of the best scripting languages. Unfortunately, Mr. Kitchen Hackers, Python has no optimization capabilities. GIL is great for calling C code, but it kills the language. Just shut up and... save this thread. Sooner or later Python will die (Google is pt. 1 in this party). And then you'll shed a few tears and go program in Rust. Sad, but true.
sdeaf 6y ago
So, programming language development is inexpensive?

365 points by Ldorigo 6y ago

a-query-unknown 6y ago

Sure took them long enough.

dontchooseanick 6y ago

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

DSingularity 6y ago
Is that even a feasible strategy for languages? I mean I get it for APIs... but we are talking about a language.
- pansa2 6y ago
  Visual J++? > Some observers have remarked that this incompatibility appears to have been a deliberate aim of Microsoft's, in an attempt to at least slow the advance of Sun's Java technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_J%2B%2B
  - ppseafield 6y ago
    But Microsoft got sued and lost hard on that one. They created C# and .Net as competition, but they hardly extinguished Java.
  - santoshalper 6y ago
    That failed spectacularly.
- doof_warrior 6y ago
  Of course. The more they break Python compatibility, the more reasons new projects have to use the nearest competitor.. which is Go.
  - enjeyw 6y ago
    I would have thought the nearest competitor to Python was Ruby, JS or Julia, depending on the application.

Google234 6y ago

Hopefully Google can push the foundation to stop adding bad complicated language features like pattern matching or the walrus operator to the language.

vletal 6y ago
Well, the is still C and other languages if you do not like complicated high level features.
- Google234 6y ago
  Um, C has complicate low level features. Not sure how that is better.
josefx 6y ago
You might be looking at the wrong language for that. Can I interest you in some Java instead? Do you want it to Go?
- pansa2 6y ago
  > You might be looking at the wrong language for that. You’re right, Python is not a simple language at all. Yet that’s how it’s widely perceived - I’m not sure why.
  - superbcarrot 6y ago
    Because it's easy to get started with and the complexity that you're exposed to increases with your experience and technical needs instead of being frontloaded. This isn't the same as being simple but it's understandable how the two can be confused.
  - _tom_ 6y ago
    Perhaps because it's relatively easy to get started?
  - eznzt 6y ago

jdorfman 6y ago

This sets a great example for other cloud providers to emulate. I'm really proud of Ewa Jodlowska (PSF Executive Director) and her team for making this happen for the Python community.

pansa2 6y ago

> The Python Steering Council and Python Software Foundation will work together to contract a developer This would represent a significant increase in the number of people paid to work on the Python language. Two years ago it was estimated that it only had (the equivalent of) two full-time employees working on it. https://discuss.python.org/t/official-list-of-core-developers/924 https://discuss.python.org/t/official-list-of-core-developer...

josephg 6y ago
Its such a statement about the free rider problem that python can have only 2 people working fulltime on it. Python is one of the most popular languages in the world - there's got to be trillions of dollars worth of companies depending on it. Small improvements to the language would result in millions of dollars of productivity gains in aggregate globally. And yet ... collectively we can only find enough money to pay two full time salaries?! Seriously?
- edwardwatson 6y ago
  Python is as popular as it is because it's free, not because it's good. If companies had to contribute, many would pick something else.
- tasubotadas 6y ago
  So... why don't you pay?
  - bzb6 6y ago
    Someone else should!
  - feanaro 6y ago
    Why do you assume he isn't paying? The payment should obviously be proportional, though. You can't expect a single individual to finance what a gigantic multibillion corporation could.

pm90 6y ago

More money for OSS is always great. Does the PSF employ full time engineers to work on Python? For some reason my mental model of core Python contributors was that they worked at a company which paid them to work mostly on the language, but also on other company specific things. Maybe because that’s how Golang seems to work? IDK, genuinely curious.

pansa2 6y ago
Don’t know why this is downvoted. AFAIK most core developers spend, at most, 20% of their paid time on the language / 80% on other things, not (as you might think) 80% / 20%.

naebother 6y ago

Great, looking forward to migrating to Go once Python 4 is finally shutdown in 2023 ;) But, yeah, ultimately I'm glad any company is contributing to upkeep the language, but the whole "Visionary Sponsors", "Sustainability Sponsors", "Maintaining Sponsors", "Contributing Sponsors", etc distinction between them seems very unnecessary.

robertlagrant 6y ago
Python 4 will be the last breaking change - it moves away from Unicode to ASCII bytestrings :D

cybert00th 6y ago

While I agree this can only benefit the Python community - I'll reserve judgement as to whether in the long term this proves to be beneficial for the next 3 to 5 years.

doof_warrior 6y ago

Google has ZERO incentive for the python ecosystem to flourish. Remember the breaking 3.0 change came when Guido was an employee there, and go was starting to get mainstream traction. I agree with the embrace-extinguish crowd. The strategy will be to introduce a huge breaking change in the next release. This is a corporation. They don't do things for free. What started out as a "free" browser turned into a vehicle to capture a monopoly on internet video. What makes you think they dont have a long term plan to profit from python?

yunohn 6y ago
>> Guido was an employee there, and go was starting to get mainstream traction. So your conspiracy theory is that Guido, the BDFL at the time, colluded with Google, who use python for numerous products, to destroy python and popularize Golang......?
- doof_warrior 6y ago
  Yes. Track most breaking changes and broken libraries to the authors and you will see a Google connection.
  - bzb6 6y ago
    That’s interesting. You should write a post or something with all the links, because if you’re right that’s going to be spicy.
gerash 6y ago
I'd bet someone here would write some QAnon-level conspiracy theory on how this is bad news and here it is.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Changing to 3.0 hardly killed Python. The strategy to get rid of a project is not to introduce breaking changes, but just let it die through neglect. You don't need a scheme to kill a plant. You can just stop watering it.

sandGorgon 6y ago

I wish that Google, Dropbox and Instagram would invest some of this money in Pypy as well - which has been struggling for funds for quite a while. In fact, I have nothing but the deepest of respect for the Devs who built a version of python better than the "officially sanctioned one" without having any financial support.

nt2h9uh238h 6y ago
I'm very confident open-source projects (also like VueJS, Nuxt, and many NPM packages) are some of the highest-impact donations and philantrophy anyone could make.
- elygre 6y ago
  I hope that isn’t true. For the sake of starving children, political dissidents, victims of war, the environment, people struck by disease, and many more, I really hope that isn’t true.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    From a multiplicative effect and the current lack of funds it very well could be. Small improvements to development (reduction in bugs, reduction in cpu waste, etc) to things as widely used as these could mean that your $1 donated got multiplied millions of times in dev time saved. This massive leverage is sort of unique to open source because it’s non-rivalrous. Resources you donate like food, shelter, etc can only help a limited number of people. Note that this analysis of highest-impact does not make any moral judgements about which is more important. I personally would rather pay to help build plumbing in Uganda rather than this, but it definitely won’t have the same leverage.
    - learnstats2 6y ago
      > $1 donated got multiplied millions of times in dev time saved. Love that trickle-down economics, Step 1: less time spent on dev tasks Step 2: ?????? Step 3: end war, end hunger

varispeed 6y ago

About time. These multi-billion companies exploited open source software and essentially got free labour without having to pay salaries and taxes by cynically promoting open source movement manipulating developers into giving up their hard work for free (exposure). Hopefully the time will come that these companies will make big payouts to all people who where manipulated into contributing into "open source software" (meaning free labour for big corporations).

waynesonfire 6y ago
Comparing open source development to a forced labor camp is a stretch. I wouldn't hold my breath for a "big payout" -- a company will invest in what they find is necessary. Maybe it's a gold sponsor, maybe a junior engineer hire or more. The market is efficient in my view and everyone involved benefits. The disconnect I see is the delusion that open source contributor(s) are owed something because someone else found the software useful. They seem to so quickly forget that they picked the liscense and that liscense is being used as designed. Your narrative is not productive. Instead, maybe advocate for cultural change in what it means to adopt open source technology, eliminate barriers for monetary or other forms of support. It's unlikely the intent of adoters is to be laughing all the way to the bank as you're claiming.
- varispeed 6y ago
  My point is that big companies promote open source movement as a way to save on R&D spending. They'll see what people make for free and then pick up what sticks without paying anything for the effort. In many countries you can't hire someone to do work for free, even if they agree and you have at least pay minimum wage. The same should apply for open source software. Big companies should not be allowed to use it without reimbursing all contributors even if they license the code as public domain. This needs to stop as this is a modern way of labour exploitation. People make literally billions of off python and its time they share that profits with the developers and pay appropriate taxes!
  - drstewart 6y ago

mrmonkeyman 6y ago

Goodbye Python.

nexthash 6y ago

A lot of people here are accusing Google of embrace, extend, and extinguish, but you have to realize that the incentives here are different from Big Tech's point of view. I'd first like to point out Python is a programming language, not an internet standard or file format. It gets its utility merely from the ability to develop in it, even without an established ecosystem or network effect. The barrier to jump in, or fork off and start over is far lower compared to a browser or file format. So what's in it for Big Tech? Well, in a situation where controlling the technology or suppressing it is difficult due to the low costs of starting over, it is in their best interest to promote the ecosystem rather than control it. When they put in the time, money, and engineers to make it better the return on investment can be massive, because of the help they get from the community to grow, maintain, and keep compatible this core component at less cost than if they did it themselves. The incentives align and benefit everyone, especially if there is a fair governance system mediating between all parties involved. The biggest threat to an open source project is therefore not Big Tech collaboration, but project abandonment and lack of maintenance. I hope this makes everyone a little more optimistic about the direction of open source, especially as companies realize the real value it can have for all involved.

tal8d 6y ago
A company can damage an open source project in a number of creative ways that have nothing to do with file formats. One word: Oracle. OpenOffice vs LibreOffice is a pretty good example of plausibly deniable sabotage that would enjoy a bonus with the number of people interjecting, index finger raised, with "Actually, Hanlon's razor..." To be fair to Oracle, Sun didn't help that situation at all, Oracle just ratcheted it up.
- konjin 6y ago
  Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.
  - higerordermap 6y ago
    This needs a wikipedia entry.

b0tzzzzzzman 6y ago

Oh great, I am sure they won't ask for anything in return. Some tele3_etey here, some downloads there, and before you know it.. TLDR long rant ... Boiled down. G00gl3 didn't do this selflessly. No praise, no PR, no prepared BS.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

I used to try and raise funds for the UK pycon (I was very bad at it) and my biggest takeaway was that most devs were infavour of their company forking over some cash, but "charity" was a tough sell internally. The best results was selling "booths" at the conference. But that had more cost to the sponsor than just the cash we asked for. I have been mulling on Something that makes it less charity - purchasing a "not really support" option. This might be a annual membership, in return for which you get ... early access to annual roadmap pdf. Or an online video from the main devs explaining what they are doing for five minutes (#) What if there existed something to Make the above easy and simply to do - a small foundation who's job is to keep membership rolls and accept payments from companies on behalf of any foss project that signs up (it's something I imagine patreon could offer). They then ensure that the (minimal contract) is adhered to in some manner. (#) Seriously - you could set up a zoom call with 1-5 devs and just hit record once a year - I promise that 99% will see this as unbearable imposition and then talk for two hours. And that's "actionable paid insights into the future of this tool we depend on" So the point being, if your FOSS project gets traction, then sign up to this foss-patreon, tell everyone to click to subscribe and you might might get a sponsor or two.

0xfaded 6y ago
I've been in a similar place raising funds for a makerspace. Sponsorship is a marketing expense for a company and can be accounted for as a cost of doing business. A private donation is hit by income tax and, where I live, depending on the structure VAT. I used to be 100% against tax deductible contributions to not-for-profits. I've turned 180 on this. Citizens are much better at allocating funds to worthy causes than a central government. In the case of our Makerspace, we couldn't get any public funding because we didn't fit into a predefined category such as a "sports team", and operating a garage full of tools could be seen as competing with private industry. Somehow there was money available for the lawyers who delivered that opinion to the local government though.
- alexchamberlain 6y ago
  In the UK, a company can deduct a charitable donation from its profits before calculating income tax. For an individual, the charity can claim the basic rate tax the individual paid (Gift Aid) and higher rate tax payers can claim the higher rate taxes using their self assessment, so in round numbers, it doesn't really matter who makes the donation. That being said, it relies on there being a UK charity, which a lot of software foundations are not. (Aside: I work for a US company that does support US foundations, as well as employ a few CPython core devs)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cyberpsybin 6y ago

Python to be discontinued in 3 years. RIP.

olau 6y ago

Thanks, Google!

ElectricMind 6y ago

Can we now expect "greed" and " privacy violation" as in built features of the language, please? Thanks

intricatedetail 6y ago
Pretty sure one day they'll add telemetry so Google will know what and when you are running...

pansa2 6y ago

> to ensure future funding and volunteer hours are used efficiently and effectively. One of the reasons that Python’s development has been so haphazard in the past few years is because the language is primarily developed by volunteers, and the philosophy has been that “you can’t tell volunteers what to work on”. I wonder if something’s going to change there.

dragonwriter 6y ago
Google paying for approximately 1 developer isn’t going to change that the vast majority of Python work is done by volunteers who the PSF isn’t in a position to direct, no.
- pansa2 6y ago
  How are they planning to “ensure volunteer hours are used effectively” if they can’t direct those volunteers?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    There is presumably some volunteer work of some kind done directly for PSF, which they can direct, but most of the Python development work isn't done that way. You can probably improve (ensure is to strong of a term) the effectiveness of outside volunteer development in a number of ways, though, such as improving community communication of priorities and improving processes around accepting, reviewing, and providing feedback on contributed code.
  - bregma 6y ago
    The volunteer hours are used to offer contributions. Those contributions are accepted or rejected. If you control what gets accepted or rejected, you control the definition of how the volunteer hours are used effectively in terms of the final result. Remember: "open source" has never meant anyone can get changes upstreamed. It has always only meant anyone can use the source downstream. This confusion has resulted in a lot of indignant outrage by armchair contributors.
6y ago

yhoneycomb 6y ago

uh oh

hexo 6y ago

Meh, even Microsoft seems to be better at sponsoring open source projects.

smitty1e 6y ago

Terry Jones, personifying GvR's brainchild, sits alone. Eric Idle, representing Google, lights far too close to him and begins: "Does your wife Go? Is she a Goer?"[1] (This is, after all, Python thread, no?) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_Nudge https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_Nudge

isodev 6y ago

It’s good to see some of those ad money going back to OSS. Google owns its entire existence to technology and innovations created outside of Google.

enneff 6y ago
Google has been putting a lot of money into open source for decades, in many different ways.

asah 6y ago

I guess Go isn't killing Python, hunh.

vnparker 6y ago

"to contract a developer to help CPython determine what needs to take priority through analytical metrics as well as helping CPython understand how backlog can be addressed. The role will also be responsible for surveying maintainers to paint a better landscape of CPython, which will be used to ensure future funding and volunteer hours are used efficiently and effectively." This will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare that increases the power of the existing cabal, most of whom already do not provide any meaningful code contributions.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
> through analytical metrics That sounds very "Google." They tend to be quite data-driven. Seems to have worked for them. I tend to be a bit sloppier, myself.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

Google has earned billions thanks to techs like python, and never contributed much to it compared to what it gained. Then suddenly this. Now I'm wondering if MS hiring Guido triggered some reaction to not loose control of what is currently one of the most popular language in the world. Or something else I don't know about. I really want to rejoice. My favorite language gets $ 350k. Yet I can't help but be suspicious of philanthropy coming from big players. I'm getting cynical and always look for a PR, strategic investments or counter attacks.

peter_retief 6y ago
Everyone uses Python it is probably the most used language ever. I think it is really nice that Google gave the organisation some cash. If Google are trying to buy some goodwill in the developer community it is working.
bla3 6y ago
It's probably "now" because it's the sponsorship program got revamped, see https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship-new/ https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship-new/ They probably get their logo on the python.org website somewhere, and $350k isn't a ton of money. p The reason is PR. Still, good for the python foundation to have a program that allows it to harvest some of the PR budget out there.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Right. It's a good thing for the psf and it doesn't look like there a string attached.
- iudqnolq 6y ago
  I normally think overanalyzing where organizations spend their money is misguided, but I was surprised that the largest dollar amount on the infographic was spent "strengthening trademarks". Here's what I found under the details link. Does anyone understand what this actually means? > One major component of the PSF’s mission is protecting Python-related intellectual property. To strengthen the PSF’s trademarks and copyrights for Python, PyCon, and PyPI, the PSF spent over $198,000 USD in 2019 and $77,000 through October 2020.

bigodbiel 6y ago

can we expect better/official integration with android platform?

ziofill 6y ago

I am shocked that Google gets so much praise for giving so little, but I’m even more shocked about the hypocrisy of other giants (e.g. Microsoft) Who give what, 60k?

vendiddy 6y ago

Many who complain about tech companies using open source without giving back will also complain when they start sponsoring it.

pdimitar 6y ago

I have seen numerous current and ex Googlers here in HN (in the past) claim that Python is still very prevalent among Google's source code base so this is not at all surprising; was bound to happen at one point. Whether they have any other hidden agendas is pure speculation. Time will tell. It's my opinion that they are simply making sure that a technology they are very heavily invested in doesn't bleed most of its brains out.

z77dj3kl 6y ago

Google has in the order of 2^16 software engineers, and it's hungry for more. It makes complete sense to invest and promote projects and programming languages that are heavily used within Google, just to make hiring easier and not having to train everyone up on some obscure stuff. I think that's one of the main reasons they've been pushing stuff like protobuf and gRPC out there: just so that people outside have some exposure when they end up getting hired.

corruptedX 6y ago

Finally. After so long.

abrowne 6y ago

Does Google even use Python 3? I thought they were moving things from Python 2 to Go. (And Chromium build and debug scripts still use Python 2 AFAIK.)

throwaway19937 6y ago
Any large organization is already using virtually everything. My employer, for example, is much smaller than Google and we are using at least a dozen programming languages. It's kind of a given that they're using Python 3 somewhere.

yannoninator 6y ago

This is all perfectly fine, surely this would not happen to Rust any time soon. Nothing to see here, just another big tech giant sinking its teeth deeper into the direction of a programming language. I welcome this new power grab from Google, bravo.

gtirloni 6y ago
Although a small amount of cynism is warranted, do you have any evidence that this indeed the case?
- yannoninator 6y ago
  Shouldn't we be suspicious of big tech companies bearing gifts like this? You wouldn't throw $350K and ask nothing in return.

ta988 6y ago

Google has one director in the newly created Kotlin Foundation. Just posted the link to their faq here so we don't hijack the discussion here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26124054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26124054

gyformat 6y ago

I'm amazed at the number of people praising Google, which is giving a comparatively small sum to a finished late stage project. Many core developers have given an equivalent of that sum in free labor and receive no praise. On the contrary, a comment in this very thread accuses them of being "white males". Secondly, just "giving money to OSS" is meaningless. It depends on how it is used, who pulls the strings in the background and long term effects on the health of the volunteer part (who has done virtually all of the meaningful work in Python). People cite gcc and the Linux kernel. The situation is quite different. Sponsorship has started early by companies like SuSE, RedHat and Cygnus, who at the time were aligned with the original OSS values. The means of sponsorship was hiring top developers directly, bypassing foundations and councils. The is pretty different from the bureaucratic process that is being envisioned here.

bratah 6y ago

Isn't 350k salary of an engineer in silicon valley?

sitkack 6y ago

Watch out people! This is has been their long-game-plan all along, they are gonna switch Python to two-space indentation as mandatory. Big Tech Must Be Stopped!

dlor 6y ago

All the overthinking on motivations here is entertaining :) Disclosure: I'm the Googler that got this funded. The process was roughly: - We have some extra budget at the end of the year! What are some ways we can spend this to get results while giving back to OSS? - Hey PSF, do you have any ideas for what you could do with some funding? - Looks good to me! We're just getting started, but we're working on ways to make this all more sustainable, scalable, and less ad-hoc. If you have ideas here, please reach out! I'm dlorenc at google dot com, or join in the OpenSSF (openssf.org)! We discuss these topics and more in the Securing Critical Projects WG, info here: https://github.com/ossf/wg-securing-critical-projects/ https://github.com/ossf/wg-securing-critical-projects/

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 6y ago
Always critics to everything and Google has grown big enough to be fun to hate. There's plenty of things to criticize what happens at your organization these days -- but this isn't one of them. Congrats
vlag10 6y ago
You are at the wrong address. The PSF has nothing to do with Python core. The proper way is to hire devs with proven track record and let them work 100% on the project.
- dlor 6y ago
  I think that's what's happening here - the PSF will be hiring someone to work 100% on core CPython for a year.
oefrha 6y ago
Thank you. Google has been sponsoring PSF for at least a decade -- cleared mentioned in TFA -- without much fuss; now the sponsorship level is upgraded ($90k to $150k?) and all of a sudden there's an uproar about Google taking over, shutting down (???), adding telemetry (?????), blah blah. The conspiracy theorists suddenly come out of the woodwork, the driveby haters (who I doubt even has any interest in Python) predictably dish out a stream of low effort Google memes... What a tedious thread to read, which is unfortunately just one example of the not even recent quality down spiral in any thread related to any big corp, regardless of whether there's a shred of connection between the topic and what certain people are angry about. To be clear, I'm not another guy with no interest in Python just seizing the opportunity to complain. I care about Python deeply and have quite a few patches in core over the years. Edit: I probably got the sponsorship dollar amounts wrong. The point stands.

kevindong 6y ago

The list of sponsors for the PSP [0] is surprisingly short considering how relatively affordable it is [1]: Visionary: $150k (this is the level created for Google) Sustainability: $90k Maintaining: $60k Contributing: $30k Supporting: $15k Partner: $7.5k Participating: $3.75k Associate: $1.5k [0]: https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors/ https://www.python.org/psf/sponsorship/sponsors/ [1]: https://www.python.org/sponsors/application/ https://www.python.org/sponsors/application/

tarruda 6y ago

> CPython Developer in Residence Can someone explain what this means?

alain94040 6y ago

Here's a suggestion for really funding open source. Donations have produced minuscule results. I think we agree the engineers want their employer to fund open source. It's up to us to establish a new normal: if your company relies on open source technologies, you are expected to give back 0.1% of your revenue to open source projects. That's it. Obviously, the challenge is to go from today's situation, where 0 companies give 0.1% of their revenue to open source foundations, to 1. Maybe an open source startup will be the first. Then a second. Then maybe the Google engineers can pressure Google to join this program. And maybe, just maybe, in 10 years, it's become expected, and most tech companies do it. (a) 0.1% is an example, chosen to be low enough that it doesn't impact the financial results of the company, but large enough that it dwarfs all current donations to open source. (b) if you are worried about the complexity of donating to multiple open source projects, you can imagine that a company could donate its share in one chunk to some open source foundation, which then redistributes among individual open source projects.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

m0derator 6y ago

Guys, let's be honest. Python is DYING. Right here, right now. And this is very sad for me, because in my opinion Python is one of the best scripting languages. Unfortunately, Mr. Kitchen Hackers, Python has no optimization capabilities. GIL is great for calling C code, but it kills the language. Just shut up and... save this thread. Sooner or later Python will die (Google is pt. 1 in this party). And then you'll shed a few tears and go program in Rust. Sad, but true.

sdeaf 6y ago

So, programming language development is inexpensive?