jessenoller.com

Pre­am­ble

A recent post on Hacker News enti­tled “Why I still don’t con­tribute to open source” raised a series of thoughts in my head — but then, before I could even take the time to gen­er­ate the small­est of replies, Brian Curtin swooped in and made prob­a­bly one of the sin­gle best com­ments in reply, and on the sub­ject of con­tri­bu­tion that I’ve ever read. The orig­i­nal post; and Brian’s excel­lent reply were enough to get me obsess­ing about this sub­ject again — eager to share my thoughts and feel­ings on it.

A while ago (almost exactly a year, oddly enough) I posted a ques­tion here to my blog — “Why aren’t You Con­tribut­ing (to Python)” — the replies to that post, both in the orig­i­nal com­ments, Hacker News, Red­dit and other thought­ful responses by Tim Golden, Yaniv Aknin and Brian Curtin made me sit back and think for a long time what we — as a “python core” team could do to help reduce the fric­tion and over­all bar­rier to con­tribut­ing to core itself. It also made me take a step back and ask myself why I con­tribute to Python — not just via core, but also to PyCon and the PSF.

In the replies; there was a com­mon series of “bar­ri­ers” cited — and as you read through those posts above, you will note that many of them aren’t just applic­a­ble to Python-Core itself. They are applic­a­ble to open source in gen­eral. This is some­thing impor­tant to note, as solu­tions to these prob­lems iden­ti­fied by “us” and other projects can be glob­ally applied to projects “suf­fer­ing” from a “lack of new blood” and new contribution.

New con­tri­bu­tion is the lifeblood of projects — it brings new, fresh per­spec­tives and ideas, new solu­tions to old prob­lems, in addi­tion to adding band­width to a project’s main­te­nance overall.

The key “bar­ri­ers” were:

• Time — this is the eas­i­est to extract; all of us are incred­i­bly busy peo­ple. Espe­cially peo­ple with fam­i­lies, or hob­bies out­side of just hack­ing on code, tech­nol­ogy. We have our day jobs, or school — or we have won­der­ful lit­tle chil­dren and beau­ti­ful spouses that absorb (deservedly so) our time. This leaves a finite amount of time wherein peo­ple can con­tribute if it’s some­thing they have any time to do at all. Most of us don’t get paid to con­tribute to open source projects, and even then, if we do, once again it’s a finite amount of time (let’s say, 25%).
• Knowl­edge — A lot of peo­ple cited dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing infor­ma­tion about how to help and where help is needed. Still oth­ers men­tioned they didn’t even know there was a bug tracker, etc. Hav­ing a low bar­rier to entry — mean­ing a low fric­tion method of hav­ing some­one con­tribute some­thing (a bug, a patch, a doc fix, etc) is crit­i­cal. Hope­fully the new Dev Guide helps, and hope­fully the core-mentors project helps too.
• Fric­tion — Many peo­ple cited (both pub­licly and pri­vately) that they felt that responses on the bug tracker and mail­ing lists were extremely hos­tile. Not only is there a per­ceived high bar­rier — it’s a high bar­rier loaded with fric­tion. Ignor­ing the hos­til­ity, real or per­ceived, there’s also the fric­tion of debate over changes, and the fric­tion of time. If I sub­mit a patch, and noth­ing hap­pens for months, I am going to be less inclined to con­tribute anything.
• Hos­til­ity — While I men­tion this in the fric­tion part; it’s impor­tant to note on it’s own — peo­ple that don’t feel wel­come or that they can safely ask ques­tions or explore ideas with­out being “yelled” at or judged harshly. Email is a ter­ri­ble forum to trans­mit emo­tion, so even if the per­son writ­ing the email didn’t mean for it to come off as such, very fre­quently, emails that are short and to the point come off as cold, hard and some­times insult­ing. Hav­ing a global devel­oper com­mu­nity that spans cul­tures fur­ther com­pli­cates elec­tronic exchanges.
• Qual­i­fi­ca­tions — many peo­ple felt that they were sim­ply unqual­i­fied to con­tribute, in any way. Peo­ple are daunted by projects like Python, and JQuery — any­thing with a user base or estab­lished “niche” seems to auto­mat­i­cally gen­er­ate higher bar­ri­ers and more fric­tion due to the sim­ple fact peo­ple are scared they are not skilled enough to contribute.

Let’s assume that all of these are real bar­ri­ers (I feel they are) and there’s a lim­ited num­ber of things to counter these things in place. Why bother?

Moti­va­tion

Brian’s com­ment touches on some­thing I think is important:

I strongly believe that every­one, and I mean every­one, is ready to con­tribute to OSS. On the Python project, Jesse Noller recently started a “core men­tor­ship” group to help peo­ple put the rub­ber to the road. There’s an almost end­less amount of work to be done on CPython, and we’ll lit­er­ally take any­one with any amount of knowl­edge and help them con­tribute. Whether it’s peo­ple con­tribut­ing to OSS for the first time, or peo­ple new to con­tribut­ing to Python, we can find something.

If you under­stand Eng­lish, you can write doc­u­men­ta­tion. If you can write Python code, which is obvi­ously a com­mon skill for some­one inter­ested in con­tribut­ing to Python, there’s plenty of work. If you know C, dig right in.

The group of core con­trib­u­tors ranges from 18 to the upper 60s, from the self-taught to multi-PhDs, from stu­dents to Googlers. I think the only peo­ple who aren’t ready to con­tribute, wouldn’t be inter­ested in con­tribut­ing in the first place.

(minor quib­ble: s/write documentation/improve documentation/ — see also JKM’s post on great doc­u­men­ta­tion, just like code, doc­u­men­ta­tion con­tri­bu­tions dif­fer in scale)

Brian is dead right — I, like him, believe that every­one and any­one con­tribute to OSS, and in the local case — the Python case — every­one can con­tribute some­thing no mat­ter who they are, or what their skill set it. If you know eng­lish (espe­cially bet­ter than I write it) then man, help with doc­u­men­ta­tion — a seem­ing blind spot for many projects. If you’re a designer, we both know most OSS needs some design help — web site design­ing, the­me­ing, GUI work, and so on. The num­ber of OSS projects out there with bad UI/UX and or just a bad inter­face (I’m look­ing at you, git) is astound­ingly large.

I truly, fun­da­men­tally believe that OSS is is the per­fect proof that any­one and every­one can con­tribute to some­thing. Why? Code and projects are blind — or if they aren’t, they should be. They don’t care if you’re a sen­tient ham sand­wich, they don’t care if you don’t have the proper school­ing, how old you are, the color of your skin, or your reli­gious beliefs. They don’t care where you are located or what you did before you con­tributed some­thing. They just care about what you have con­tributed — doc patch, code patch or fea­ture. That thing you have sub­mit­ted should be able to stand on its own mer­its, regard­less of any­thing out­side of that atomic change. I’m not say­ing that what you’ve changed, pro­posed or patched won’t be debated (see: bikesheds) — it will — but if it passes tech­ni­cal muster, then there should be noth­ing stand­ing in the way of that change.

Why do I feel this way? Because — they (they being you — the Python com­mu­nity) wel­comed me — I’m not qual­i­fied for con­tribut­ing to some­thing as large and amaz­ing as Python! I’m barely qual­i­fied to raise my dog. I suf­fer from near con­stant impos­tor syn­drome — I run across things inside of Python that fre­quently blow my mind, things I don’t even grasp. I’m hot headed, brash and bel­liger­ent. I lead with my pas­sion and my beliefs and I’ll fight for some­thing until I pass out from exhaus­tion. I over­com­mit, stretch myself thin. I signed up to main­tain a mod­ule, then I had a kid and changed jobs. I’m not exactly a good pro­gram­ming citizen.

Even today, as I sit on the board of the Python Soft­ware Foun­da­tion, and I am now chair for PyCon, I look around in con­stant won­der and ask “why accept me”?

It’s because OSS, and espe­cially the Python com­mu­nity, of which I am very proud, truly doesn’t care who you are — if you’re a dog who can beat tim­sort, we’ll take the patch if you can prove it. We accept social mis­an­thropes, per­fectly nor­mal peo­ple with 2.5 kids, a dog and soc­cer prac­tice on Sundays.

You’ve got to be pas­sion­ate.

I’ll admit — I’m not a cold, cal­cu­lat­ing math­e­mat­i­cal engi­neer. Seri­ously, big sur­prise. What I am is insanely pas­sion­ate about some­thing, and the com­mu­nity around some­thing most peo­ple con­sider “just a tool” (e.g. a lan­guage). I’m pas­sion­ate about its com­mu­nity — I’m pas­sion­ate about the lan­guage phi­los­o­phy. My moti­va­tion comes from that very pas­sion. The rea­son I am involved in OSS in any way is because I found myself incred­i­bly pas­sion­ate about some­thing that changed my life. The rea­son why I steal time from my fam­ily, my job, and myself to work on these things is because they kin­dle a fire inside of me. See­ing some­thing I’ve done help some­one, make some­thing bet­ter, change someone’s life in some small way just feeds that fire.

I’m not in this due to a higher “human call­ing” — I don’t con­tribute because I owe some­thing to my fel­low man — in fact, many times I’ve had to make the deci­sion not to do some­thing so I could spend more time putting food on the table for my fam­ily and myself. I con­tribute patches, ideas and what I can because it makes me feel good, it makes me feel rewarded and self-fulfilled.

If you’re approach­ing con­tribut­ing to a project — to a com­mu­nity — out of a sense that “you just should” or some bro­ken ideal that you have to serve the greater good — it’s just another job you’re not pas­sion­ate about. You’re look­ing at con­tri­bu­tion from the stand­point of a solemn duty, and not what it should be — some­thing that is reward­ing, excit­ing — some­thing that when you look up and see some­one using what you’ve made, fixed or improved you feel accom­plished and awarded.

You have to pick a project, and some­thing within that project that gives you that thrill, that fires up your pas­sion (even if it’s anger). You have to do it because you’re inspired and you want to do it. Sure — there’s a lot of drudge work at the end of the day — clean­ing things up, fix­ing bro­ken test suites, the equiv­a­lent to sweep­ing the floors once the party is over, but heck — you did some­thing amaz­ing, or some small thing that’s going to change someone’s life, go ahead and pick up a broom while you’ve still got that glow.

I con­tribute not from altru­ism; I con­tribute because I like to and I want to (and some­times need to). Some part of me feels that yes, I am pay­ing back some amount of debt — but no amount of social or moral debt will make you over­come the bar­ri­ers I out­lined in the pre­am­ble. Not amount of social extor­tion will make you pay the bill — only you can moti­vate you, and you have to want to do it. OSS is about scratch­ing your itch; if some­thing like python-core isn’t itchy for you — find some­thing that is.

Mechan­ics

After that lit­tle side rail into moti­va­tion — espe­cially what dri­ves me — I think it’s impor­tant to go back to the mechan­ics. Those bar­ri­ers are real — and as Brian points out, we (python-core) are work­ing on them as a team, and the Python Soft­ware Foun­da­tion is work­ing on them as a community. Since the orig­i­nal post I’ve been lucky to help spin up the python sprints project — the goal of which is to onboard new devel­op­ers via face to face pro­gram­ming sprints. It’s been pretty suc­cess­ful, and we still have lots we can and should do with it, but I like to think that we’ve done some work address­ing the Knowl­edge, Fric­tion and Qual­i­fi­ca­tions issues on a local, sprint level.

Peo­ple don’t com­mu­ni­cate face to face quite the same way they do on a mail­ing list, and a lot of peo­ple are much more com­fort­able sit­ting next to you ask­ing ques­tions then wad­ing into/navigating the jun­gle of a mail­ing list. Espe­cially when so many peo­ple expect neg­a­tive “go look in the archives” and “RTFM”. Mailing lists answer spe­cific ques­tions well, but tend to suck for get­ting big-picture infor­ma­tion needed to get rolling on something.

Hence why we’ve also started the Python Core Men­tor­ship pro­gram — which, if luck holds out, should be mod­er­ately suc­cess­ful in help­ing us ramp up new core devel­op­ers in an envi­ron­ment that aims to remove the final bar­ri­ers — we can’t bend time. But I’ll be damned if we can not lower the knowl­edge, fric­tion, hos­til­ity bar­ri­ers and make every per­son feel wel­come and qual­i­fied, no mat­ter who they are. I want the OSS world — even “my” own small cor­ner of it to be wel­com­ing when my chil­dren one day wan­der into it (if they want to).

We (as a com­mu­nity) have a long way to go — Python-Core as a team is still evolv­ing — as a com­mu­nity, and as a devel­op­ment team — we have plenty of work to do to make con­ver­sa­tions and dis­cus­sions more civil, more wel­com­ing. We have bar­ri­ers that pre­vent us from being as diverse as we could be (notice I avoided should) — these are things we can help fix with out­reach, lead­er­ship and guid­ance. We have to make it easy for peo­ple to con­tribute, and we have to make it friendly and fun. We have to take peo­ple who are afraid and make them feel con­fi­dent and worth­while (As Brian put it — “Hav­ing early suc­cess is key to hav­ing con­tin­ued fun on the project.”).

But Python-core isn’t the cen­ter of the uni­verse, nor should it be. The Python Soft­ware Foun­da­tion itself is sim­ply a mar­ket­ing and legal arm of a mas­sive community. If lan­guage main­te­nance or com­mu­nity efforts aren’t your thing — go find one of thou­sands of PyPi pack­ages and help that project out, help it get a men­tor­ship pro­gram, help it’s docs, UX/UI. If you have a pas­sion that’s not solved — make a library and release it on github, bit­bucket and PyPi and con­tribute that way. As I said in “Explain­ing the Python Soft­ware Foun­da­tion (Part 1)”:

… Each and every Python pro­gram­mer, author, and indi­vid­ual talk­ing about Python right now is per­form­ing the mis­sion of the PSF. Every bit of work (from writ­ing code and doc­u­men­ta­tion, to answer­ing a ques­tion) moves Python’s ecosys­tem for­ward. Every per­son read­ing this post or com­ment­ing about Python moves it for­ward. Essen­tially — if the ecosys­tem is a code­base — all of you have the com­mit bit.

Con­tri­bu­tion can be “as small” as a doc­u­men­ta­tion exam­ple (some­times, more impor­tant than the code) — or it could be a PEP for a new lan­guage fea­ture. Con­tri­bu­tion could be orga­niz­ing a con­fer­ence, answer­ing ques­tions on a mail­ing list or intro­duc­ing new peo­ple to the com­mu­nity and tools around you that you’re pas­sion­ate about. It has to be inter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing to you.

You have to be fired up about it, maybe you’re angry about a bug, maybe you love the tool, remem­ber though a mil­lion bees with one sting can take down an ele­phant - you already know how to pro­gram, or how to write — this isn’t mon­keys at type­writ­ers, this you, an intel­li­gent and bright per­son work­ing with other intel­li­gent, bright peo­ple towards a com­mon goal. You want to make, or con­tribute some­thing awe­some — you want to make the best damned ham­mer in history.

It can be daunt­ing; it can feel like a shark tank — but trust in the fact that there are oth­ers out there that feel like you, and do want to help — and despite the fact that they won’t express thanks (or don’t know how) — every­thing you do con­tribute that’s more than ran­dom non­con­struc­tive crit­i­cism on a blog, email thread or bug report, or con­stantly telling peo­ple “you’re doing it wrong” — is appre­ci­ated (Even when poorly expressed in an inap­pro­pri­ate loca­tion, con­struc­tive crit­i­cism can still prove use­ful in the long run).

At the end of the day, it is pretty cool to be able to do this on a mod­ern, ship­ping oper­at­ing system:

ben­der:~ jesse$ grep –r “Jesse Noller” /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Resources/English.lproj/Documentation/_sources/whatsnew/2.6.txt:     PEP writ­ten by Jesse Noller and Richard Oudkerk;

And yes. You can help. All of you can, all of you do.

For fur­ther read­ing, you can also see:

• Mus­ings on the Cul­ture of python-dev (Nick Coghlan)
• Sta­tus Quo wins a stale­mate (Nick Coghlan)
• Addi­tion: The Story of George — Ayttm’s Most pro­lific non-developing contributor
• Addi­tion: Con­tribut­ing to Open source
• Addi­tion: The devel­op­ment of Python and You (PyCon 2011)

Spe­cial thanks to my wife, Brian Curtin and Nick Cogh­lan for read­ing drafts of this post.

Preamble A recent post on Hacker News entitled "Why I still don't contribute to open source" raised a series of thoughts in my head - but then, before I could even take the time to generate the smallest of replies, Brian Curtin swooped in and made probably one of the single best comments in reply, and on the subject of contribution that I've ever read. The original post; and Brian's excellent reply were enough to get me obsessing about this subject again - eager to share my thoughts and feelings on it. A while ago (almost exactly a year, oddly enough) I posted a question here to my blog - "Why aren't You Contributing (to Python)" - the replies to that post, both in the original comments, Hacker News, Reddit and other thoughtful responses by Tim Golden, Yaniv Aknin and Brian Curtin made me sit back and think for a long time what we - as a "python core" team could do to help reduce the friction and overall barrier to contributing to core itself. It also made me take a step back and ask myself why I contribute to Python - not just via core, but also to PyCon and the PSF. In the replies; there was a common series of "barriers" cited - and as you read through those posts above, you will note that many of them aren't just applicable to Python-Core itself. They are applicable to open source in general. This is something important to note, as solutions to these problems identified by "us" and other projects can be globally applied to projects "suffering" from a "lack of new blood" and new contribution. New contribution is the lifeblood of projects - it brings new, fresh perspectives and ideas, new solutions to old problems, in addition to adding bandwidth to a project's maintenance overall. The key "barriers" were: Time - this is the easiest to extract; all of us are incredibly busy people. Especially people with families, or hobbies outside of just hacking on code, technology. We have our day jobs, or school - or we have wonderful little children and beautiful spouses that absorb (deservedly so) our time. This leaves a finite amount of time wherein people can contribute if it's something they have any time to do at all. Most of us don't get paid to contribute to open source projects, and even then, if we do, once again it's a finite amount of time (let's say, 25%). Knowledge - A lot of people cited difficulties in finding information about how to help and where help is needed. Still others mentioned they didn't even know there was a bug tracker, etc. Having a low barrier to entry - meaning a low friction method of having someone contribute something (a bug, a patch, a doc fix, etc) is critical. Hopefully the new Dev Guide helps, and hopefully the core-mentors project helps too. Friction - Many people cited (both publicly and privately) that they felt that responses on the bug tracker and mailing lists were extremely hostile. Not only is there a perceived high barrier - it's a high barrier loaded with friction. Ignoring the hostility, real or perceived, there's also the friction of debate over changes, and the friction of time. If I submit a patch, and nothing happens for months, I am going to be less inclined to contribute anything. Hostility - While I mention this in the friction part; it's important to note on it's own - people that don't feel welcome or that they can safely ask questions or explore ideas without being "yelled" at or judged harshly. Email is a terrible forum to transmit emotion, so even if the person writing the email didn't mean for it to come off as such, very frequently, emails that are short and to the point come off as cold, hard and sometimes insulting. Having a global developer community that spans cultures further complicates electronic exchanges. Qualifications - many people felt that they were simply unqualified to contribute, in any way. People are daunted by projects like Python, and JQuery - anything with a user base or established "niche" seems to automatically generate higher barriers and more friction due to the simple fact people are scared they are not skilled enough to contribute. Let's assume that all of these are real barriers (I feel they are) and there's a limited number of things to counter these things in place. Why bother? Motivation Brian's comment touches on something I think is important: I strongly believe that everyone, and I mean everyone, is ready to contribute to OSS. On the Python project, Jesse Noller recently started a "core mentorship" group to help people put the rubber to the road. There's an almost endless amount of work to be done on CPython, and we'll literally take anyone with any amount of knowledge and help them contribute. Whether it's people contributing to OSS for the first time, or people new to contributing to Python, we can find something. If you understand English, you can write documentation. If you can write Python code, which is obviously a common skill for someone interested in contributing to Python, there's plenty of work. If you know C, dig right in. The group of core contributors ranges from 18 to the upper 60s, from the self-taught to multi-PhDs, from students to Googlers. I think the only people who aren't ready to contribute, wouldn't be interested in contributing in the first place. (minor quibble: s/write documentation/improve documentation/ - see also JKM's post on great documentation, just like code, documentation contributions differ in scale) Brian is dead right - I, like him, believe that everyone and anyone contribute to OSS, and in the local case - the Python case - everyone can contribute something no matter who they are, or what their skill set it. If you know english (especially better than I write it) then man, help with documentation - a seeming blind spot for many projects. If you're a designer, we both know most OSS needs some design help - web site designing, themeing, GUI work, and so on. The number of OSS projects out there with bad UI/UX and or just a bad interface (I'm looking at you, git) is astoundingly large. I truly, fundamentally believe that OSS is is the perfect proof that anyone and everyone can contribute to something. Why? Code and projects are blind - or if they aren't, they should be. They don't care if you're a sentient ham sandwich, they don't care if you don't have the proper schooling, how old you are, the color of your skin, or your religious beliefs. They don't care where you are located or what you did before you contributed something. They just care about what you have contributed - doc patch, code patch or feature. That thing you have submitted should be able to stand on its own merits, regardless of anything outside of that atomic change. I'm not saying that what you've changed, proposed or patched won't be debated (see: bikesheds) - it will - but if it passes technical muster, then there should be nothing standing in the way of that change. Why do I feel this way? Because - they (they being you - the Python community) welcomed me - I'm not qualified for contributing to something as large and amazing as Python! I'm barely qualified to raise my dog. I suffer from near constant impostor syndrome - I run across things inside of Python that frequently blow my mind, things I don't even grasp. I'm hot headed, brash and belligerent. I lead with my passion and my beliefs and I'll fight for something until I pass out from exhaustion. I overcommit, stretch myself thin. I signed up to maintain a module, then I had a kid and changed jobs. I'm not exactly a good programming citizen. Even today, as I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation, and I am now chair for PyCon, I look around in constant wonder and ask "why accept me"? It's because OSS, and especially the Python community, of which I am very proud, truly doesn't care who you are - if you're a dog who can beat timsort, we'll take the patch if you can prove it. We accept social misanthropes, perfectly normal people with 2.5 kids, a dog and soccer practice on Sundays. You've got to be passionate. I'll admit - I'm not a cold, calculating mathematical engineer. Seriously, big surprise. What I am is insanely passionate about something, and the community around something most people consider "just a tool" (e.g. a language). I'm passionate about its community - I'm passionate about the language philosophy. My motivation comes from that very passion. The reason I am involved in OSS in any way is because I found myself incredibly passionate about something that changed my life. The reason why I steal time from my family, my job, and myself to work on these things is because they kindle a fire inside of me. Seeing something I've done help someone, make something better, change someone's life in some small way just feeds that fire. I'm not in this due to a higher "human calling" - I don't contribute because I owe something to my fellow man - in fact, many times I've had to make the decision not to do something so I could spend more time putting food on the table for my family and myself. I contribute patches, ideas and what I can because it makes me feel good, it makes me feel rewarded and self-fulfilled. If you're approaching contributing to a project - to a community - out of a sense that "you just should" or some broken ideal that you have to serve the greater good - it's just another job you're not passionate about. You're looking at contribution from the standpoint of a solemn duty, and not what it should be - something that is rewarding, exciting - something that when you look up and see someone using what you've made, fixed or improved you feel accomplished and awarded. You have to pick a project, and something within that project that gives you that thrill, that fires up your passion (even if it's anger). You have to do it because you're inspired and you want to do it. Sure - there's a lot of drudge work at the end of the day - cleaning things up, fixing broken test suites, the equivalent to sweeping the floors once the party is over, but heck - you did something amazing, or some small thing that's going to change someone's life, go ahead and pick up a broom while you've still got that glow. I contribute not from altruism; I contribute because I like to and I want to (and sometimes need to). Some part of me feels that yes, I am paying back some amount of debt - but no amount of social or moral debt will make you overcome the barriers I outlined in the preamble. Not amount of social extortion will make you pay the bill - only you can motivate you, and you have to want to do it. OSS is about scratching your itch; if something like python-core isn't itchy for you - find something that is. Mechanics After that little side rail into motivation - especially what drives me - I think it's important to go back to the mechanics. Those barriers are real - and as Brian points out, we (python-core) are working on them as a team, and the Python Software Foundation is working on them as a community. Since the original post I've been lucky to help spin up the python sprints project - the goal of which is to onboard new developers via face to face programming sprints. It's been pretty successful, and we still have lots we can and should do with it, but I like to think that we've done some work addressing the Knowledge, Friction and Qualifications issues on a local, sprint level. People don't communicate face to face quite the same way they do on a mailing list, and a lot of people are much more comfortable sitting next to you asking questions then wading into/navigating the jungle of a mailing list. Especially when so many people expect negative "go look in the archives" and "RTFM". Mailing lists answer specific questions well, but tend to suck for getting big-picture information needed to get rolling on something. Hence why we've also started the Python Core Mentorship program - which, if luck holds out, should be moderately successful in helping us ramp up new core developers in an environment that aims to remove the final barriers - we can't bend time. But I'll be damned if we can not lower the knowledge, friction, hostility barriers and make every person feel welcome and qualified, no matter who they are. I want the OSS world - even "my" own small corner of it to be welcoming when my children one day wander into it (if they want to). We (as a community) have a long way to go - Python-Core as a team is still evolving - as a community, and as a development team - we have plenty of work to do to make conversations and discussions more civil, more welcoming. We have barriers that prevent us from being as diverse as we could be (notice I avoided should) - these are things we can help fix with outreach, leadership and guidance. We have to make it easy for people to contribute, and we have to make it friendly and fun. We have to take people who are afraid and make them feel confident and worthwhile (As Brian put it - "Having early success is key to having continued fun on the project."). But Python-core isn't the center of the universe, nor should it be. The Python Software Foundation itself is simply a marketing and legal arm of a massive community. If language maintenance or community efforts aren't your thing - go find one of thousands of PyPi packages and help that project out, help it get a mentorship program, help it's docs, UX/UI. If you have a passion that's not solved - make a library and release it on github, bitbucket and PyPi and contribute that way. As I said in "Explaining the Python Software Foundation (Part 1)": ... Each and every Python programmer, author, and individual talking about Python right now is performing the mission of the PSF. Every bit of work (from writing code and documentation, to answering a question) moves Python's ecosystem forward. Every person reading this post or commenting about Python moves it forward. Essentially - if the ecosystem is a codebase - all of you have the commit bit. Contribution can be "as small" as a documentation example (sometimes, more important than the code) - or it could be a PEP for a new language feature. Contribution could be organizing a conference, answering questions on a mailing list or introducing new people to the community and tools around you that you're passionate about. It has to be interesting and challenging to you. You have to be fired up about it, maybe you're angry about a bug, maybe you love the tool, remember though a million bees with one sting can take down an elephant - you already know how to program, or how to write - this isn't monkeys at typewriters, this you, an intelligent and bright person working with other intelligent, bright people towards a common goal. You want to make, or contribute something awesome - you want to make the best damned hammer in history. It can be daunting; it can feel like a shark tank - but trust in the fact that there are others out there that feel like you, and do want to help - and despite the fact that they won't express thanks (or don't know how) - everything you do contribute that's more than random nonconstructive criticism on a blog, email thread or bug report, or constantly telling people "you're doing it wrong" - is appreciated (Even when poorly expressed in an inappropriate location, constructive criticism can still prove useful in the long run). At the end of the day, it is pretty cool to be able to do this on a modern, shipping operating system: bender:~ jesse$ grep -r "Jesse Noller" /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/ /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Resources/English.lproj/Documentation/_sources/whatsnew/2.6.txt:     PEP written by Jesse Noller and Richard Oudkerk; And yes. You can help. All of you can, all of you do. For further reading, you can also see: Musings on the Culture of python-dev (Nick Coghlan) Status Quo wins a stalemate (Nick Coghlan) Addition: The Story of George - Ayttm's Most prolific non-developing contributor Addition: Contributing to Open source Addition: The development of Python and You (PyCon 2011) Special thanks to my wife, Brian Curtin and Nick Coghlan for reading drafts of this post.