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Nominee for 2019 Python Software Foundation Board Election

Thomas Wouters

  • Previous Board Service: 2001-2004, 2017-now
  • Employer: Google
  • Other Affiliations: None
  • Nominee Statement:

      Having served on the Board for the last two years, and seeing the improvements we've made in that time towards professionalising the Board and the interactions with the (growing) PSF staff, and with expanding the PSFs activities, I'm nominating myself for another three years on the Board of Directors.

      I'm a Software Engineer at Google, where I'm part of the team that maintains CPython and the internal Python infrastructure. I'm also a long-time CPython core developer, founding PSF member and PSF Board member (2001-2004 and 2017-now). Apart from my technical contributions to CPython, I'm very active on the #python IRC channel on Freenode, where I am (along with Ned Batchelder) the PSF Group Contact, the official point of contact for Freenode, for "official" Python channels (#python and #python-*). This forum isn't always without controversies, but we try to be "fair but firm" in handling any issues.

      I continue to be incredibly proud of the growth the Python community has seen, in no small part thanks to the efforts of the PSF staff and the PyCon chairs and organisation. I want to foster this growth, expand the PSF in new areas for fundraising and funding of events and activities. I believe the PSF should offer technical and legal support for Python itself, as well as the community. This includes supporting development (through direct project funding as well as sponsoring sprints), infrastructure, and efforts like translating documentation in more languages. I strongly believe in diversity, inclusivity, transparency, and fostering growth as well as technical excellence, and I would be happy if the PSF spent more of its money on any or all of those. For the past two years I've been one of the Board's Vice-Chairs (part of the Executive Committee), a member of the Financial Committee that we are in the process of setting up, a member of the PSF Fellows WG (which votes in new PSF Fellows) and a non-voting member of the Code of Conduct WG.

      I am Dutch and based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and can be found on IRC and Twitter as Yhg1s.