The EuroPython Society has launched a new grant program and has named it in recognition of Guido van Rossum's almost 20 years of leading the Python Core Developer team.

Guido van Rossum stepped down last year from his position as Python's Benevolent Dictator For Life, a title, initially with "Interim" in front of it, that was bestowed on him in 1995. This was a responsibility he had carried for over 20 years and which had served the Python community very well. This would seem to make setting up a grant program to honor him very worthwhile.  

The Guido van Rossum Core Developer Grant comes from the EuroPython Society (EPS), a Swedish non-profit and organizers of the EuroPython conference series and it bestows free entry to its future conferences, starting with the 2019 starting with EuroPython 2019 in Basel, Switzerland.

In its announcement, the EPS Board writes:

We all love Python and this is one of the main reasons we are putting on EuroPython year after year, serving the “cast of thousands” which support Python. But we also believe it is important to give something back to the main team of developers who have contributed lots of their time and energy to make Python happen: the Python Core Developers.

I'm afraid it rather smacks of a publicity drive, especially as it follows up with:

If you are a core developer and want to organize a workshop, language summit or similar event at EuroPython 2019, please get in touch with our program workgroup soon, so that we can arrange rooms, slots, etc.

So who qualifies as a Python Core Developer? According to the EPS, it's a bit vague:

Coming up with a list of core developers is difficult, since no accurate records were kept over time and where they were, they are not necessarily complete.

It cites three lists: 

• Github “Python core” group members: 
  https://github.com/orgs/python/teams/python-core/members

• Python Dev Guide Log:
  https://devguide.python.org/developers/

• Python Dev Guide Experts Index:
  https://devguide.python.org/experts/

and advises:

If you are not listed on one of these, but have committed patches to the CPython repo in the past, please provide links to these patches when requesting the grant coupons.

Having the EPS offer free conference tickets to its annual conference may only be a gesture, but being a Python Core Developer should be considered a "big deal". If it is a role you aspire to, see  How to Become a Core Developer in the Python Software Foundation's Python Developer's Guide.

• Mike James is the author of Programmer's Python: Everything is an Object published this month by I/O Press as part of the  I Programmer Library. With the subtitle "Something Completely Different" this is for those who want to understand the deeper logic in the approach that Python 3 takes to classes and objects.

More Information

Announcing the Guido van Rossum Core Developer Grant

Guido van Rossum Core Developer Grant

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