Python Software Foundation Honors Ewa Jodlowska’s Service
“Knowing that my contributions have played a foundational role in the Python Software Foundation’s ongoing success is incredibly gratifying,” Ewa Jodlowska said this month.
Since 2012, just seven people had been recognized with the Python Software Foundation’s (PSF) “Distinguished Service Award.” The award recognizes “sustained exemplary contributions” to the Python programming language community, according to Python.org, which describes it as their highest honor reserved for people who “significantly shaped the Python world.”
But this month, Ewa Jodlowska joined the list, one of three new people officially recognized.
“For over a decade, Ewa played a pivotal role in transforming the PSF from a volunteer-driven group into a thriving, professional organization,” notes a PSF blog post. “Thanks to her hard work and vision, the PSF now has paid staff, solid funding, and the ability to support the global Python community like never before.”
Accepting the award, Jodlowska said that looking back brought “fond memories and a deep sense of accomplishment.”
But the occasion also offers a chance to appreciate all the work that goes into keeping a programming language alive — everything from the sprawling, taken-for-granted infrastructure to the work that comes with managing a vast global community.
And the people bringing it all together as the language grows and grows.
Maintaining a Community
PSF is officially the maintainer of Python’s intellectual property — but in reality, it serves as the custodian of its larger community. Besides underwriting and supporting the annual Python conference, they also maintain the official Python.org website (as well as sites like the PyPI package repository and Python’s official documentation site). And a big part of that community support is grants. Over the years, they’ve awarded $655,000 to 257 different groups and individuals in 61 countries, according to the PSF’s official site.
Yet underlying all these efforts is a solid and stable foundation. “Today, the PSF can hire developers, manage a vital grants program, and oversee the infrastructure,” the PSF wrote in its blog post.
Jodlowska still vividly remembers those early days when the PSF was an entirely volunteer-driven organization. So what sparked its transformation? “Some would say it started when the PSF hired its first few real employees,” Jodlowska told The New Stack.
It was back in an era when the role of executive director didn’t even exist at the PSF, and the foundation “achieved most of its financial stability at first through running PyCon on a tight budget.” As the years rolled on and the successful conventions continued, soon the time was right to try reaching beyond that, Jodlowska says. “The PSF was able to have enough financial reserves to begin growing its paid staff.”
In 2020, Jodlowska told one interviewer that in those pivotal early days, “The board realized that employing one full-time employee (me) and one half-time employee (Kurt B. Kaiser) was not enough… I was promoted to director of operations and became in charge of hiring and managing our staff.”
But their primary responsibility was still just keeping things running. The first concerns for small teams are always existential questions like, “If our accountant is unavailable for an extended period of time, how will we access our funds to payout grants? If I cannot make it to PyCon one year, who will run the event?” In other words, it’s the age-old question of what if somebody crucial gets hit by a bus? In those early days, “My initial goal was to decrease the PSF’s bus factor of one to at least two employees per domain — finances, event planning, fundraising…”
Scenes From a Thriving Ecosystem
Fast forward to 2015. Jodlowska had gone from roughly four years as event coordinator to becoming a full-fledged director of operations, with responsibilities extending far beyond just the annual Python convention.
Once that foundation was set, “My goal was to focus on overall sustainability of Python’s ecosystem.”
One very visible example? Jodlowska says the PSF and its volunteers “began focusing on providing better support for core infrastructure such as PyPI” — Python’s sprawling PyPi package repository, which was originally completely run by volunteers. PyPi’s evolution very much exemplifies the professional transformation of the PSF — and looking back, Jodlowska sees several significant milestones:
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise paying developer Donald Stufft to work on the package repository full time. (On his LinkedIn profile, Stufft remembers it as implementing “a new PyPI code base from scratch, designed to be maintainable and modernized.”)
- With 100 million Python packages being downloaded every week in 2017, the PSF won a $170,000 grant from the Mozilla Open Source Support program to continue supporting the work, “allowing us to pay a handful of people to completely rewrite PyPI’s codebase.”
- In 2018, the PSF was able to offer a full-time position to Ee Durbin, a long-time volunteer contributor to PyPi (as well as the PSF’s Infrastructure Work Group and PyCon US), who has continued serving as their director of infrastructure for the last seven years.
- In 2021, the PSF got a special two-year grant commitment from Bloomberg (already a sponsor since 2017) to hire a full-time project and community manager for PyPi and the larger Python packaging ecosystem.
- Today, there are several paid employees contributing to the sustainability of PyPi, Jodlowska says — aware that along the way there were even more contributions from both the community and the PSF.
But while the transformation of PyPi was important, Jodlowska says what’s equally important is what the PSF learned from it about sustainability.
“That process really opened our eyes to how we can extend that to other parts of Python’s ecosystem, such as support for the CPython team” — the team supporting Python’s crucial reference implementation.
“We soon angled sponsorship a bit differently, to open up more opportunities for the PSF to get sponsored in a way that led to more folks getting paid full time to support Python’s ecosystem.”
Looking To the Future
After more than 10 years with the PSF — overseeing a lifetime’s worth of organizational growth — Jodlowska left in 2022 to become the CEO/co-founder of Repliance, a premium vendor security questionnaire service that she says on LinkedIn is “reimagining vendor security management.” But looking at the PSF today, she still sees people showing that same dedicated commitment to an organization and an infrastructure that’s solid, sustainable, and secure. “I am happy to see that modernization of the sponsorship program continues to succeed with such hires as the PyPI Safety and Security Engineer and the Python Security Developer in Residence, which all happened after my time at the PSF.
“In essence, the PSF needed to establish a solid foundation to ensure the sustainable growth and maturity of both the organization and the Python ecosystem.”
So has the Python community also changed over the years? What growth and strengthening give Jodlowska a special sense of pride and accomplishment?
Answering that question, Jodlowska began by saying that Python “is known for its readability, ease of learning, extensive libraries… But for me, the community is the best part.”
Jodlowska has fond memories of giving her very first conference talk as a keynote speech at New York City’s PyGotham conference back in 2016. “I may have been super green on giving presentations at the time, but I conveyed what it took to grow a community — with regards to the funding the PSF gave out around the world.”
She began her speech with a statement of gratitude: “I’ve been privileged enough to experience some of the greatest growth of Python.” But what she was most excited about was the impact of its grants — a role that’s not always recognized. “When I first started at the PSF, grants were minimal and very directed,” she told The New Stack. “At the height of my PSF career, we were financially supporting many international efforts.
“I still consider myself fortunate to have witnessed the growth of the Python community in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, South America, and other parts of the world.”
It’s something she seems to feel very deeply. “Every year at PyCon US, I gave a ‘PSF Address’ to detail financial standing, growth, future planning, etc.” Jodlowska says. But, “To this day, one of my favorites was when I captured photos from all the events the PSF funded around the world — thanks to the sponsors and participants of the PSF and PyCon US.”
Below is my slide @anthonypjshaw captured at @pycon. It is my favorite slide because it captures faces from all over the world. It captures the impact @thePSF has had on folks. Help us continue this worldwide impact. Donate today for #GivingTuesday! https://t.co/U5aoBnXuYC https://t.co/VxLkojiTH9
— Ewa Jodlowska (@ewa_jodlowska), December 3, 2019
“Over time, that led to the Grants Program maturing,” Jodlowska says, adding that that final maturing happened “well after my time with them.”
“We have successfully provided over $3 million in grants since we started the program in 2015,” explains its web page, “all of which have supported tons of fun and exciting work and events to enrich the Python community.”
But perhaps that’s the ultimate triumph. “The necessity for structure and guidelines is a sign of success,” Jodlowska says in conclusion.
“This need arises when something has gained widespread popularity and reliance.”
And Jodlowska experienced one more benefit personally. “I made many friends along the way.”
