This repository contains the public records for the Python Packaging Council.
PEP 772 – Packaging Council governance process is the formal governance document for this council.
Issues on this repo may be used by community members to ask the Council for decisions on topics that are in its scope. Note that no substantive discussions should take place on this repo - requests for decisions should link to the relevant public discussion, e.g., a thread on the Packaging category on discuss.python.org or an issue or pull request on a GitHub repo.
The Packaging Council has office hours for anyone in the community that wants to discuss something with the council. Office hours are completely open, you can simply show up to discuss any packaging-related topic you want with us - first come first served, and if multiple people with different topics show up we'll try to fit them all in. These are currently scheduled as 30 minute video calls every other week, on Tuesday, Pacific Time (PCT) at 10:00 AM (check your timezone here). Public calendar: browser, ical, subscribe.
These meetings can be used by packaging tool authors, PEP authors and anyone else contributing to Python Packaging to discuss things they want to discuss with the Packaging Council, when email or a GitHub ticket is for whatever reason not as desirable.
Office hours are run on Google Meet: call link.
For longer chats, different schedules (we realise the current time isn’t always good for everyone), or pressing matters, contact us directly. We can always arrange something else.
The Packaging Council meets weekly; we aim to publish a public version of meeting minutes for every meeting by the next week. You can find these minutes in this repository, under meeting-notes.
The Council makes decisions in response to issues opened on this repo, including for changes to Python Packaging Standards. The authoritative location of those standards is the specification section of the Python Packaging User Guide.
Those standards can be changed in two ways, through:
- a packaging PEP - this is the expected route for large changes; see PEPs that relate to packaging
- a direct PR - only suitable for a semantic change to the specification that is uncontroversial and small enough to not warrant writing a PEP.
Change proposals should always first be discussed on discuss.python.org before being submitted for a decision. The Council will ensure that the community has had enough time to weigh in on any proposed change, and that substantial discussion isn't still ongoing - a minimum of two weeks time after the last significant change to a proposal is expected before a decision is made.
The PEP process as defined in PEP 1 is followed. All Council members can act as PEP Sponsors, as can other groups listed under "Finding a Sponsor" in PEP 1.
Beyond the process outlined in PEP 1, the Council
- will make an active effort to help ensure that community review remains productive and collaborative, through giving feedback and moderation as needed. PEP authors may ask the Council for help managing discussions.
- would like PEP authors to seek - or may itself seek - for feedback from maintainers of projects affected by proposed standards.
- intends to put emphasis on complete and mature enough reference implementations and real-world testing.
- will require a pull request to the Specification section of the Python Packaging User Guide before accepting a PEP. Note that it's not required for the author to open such a PR before asking for a decision though - the Council will ask for a PR once they're close enough to finalizing their acceptance. This step is only meant to ensure the Packaging Guide stays up to date; it's not another avenue for design discussion.
The process for other specification changes will be similar to that for PEPs:
- Community review on the packaging section of discuss.python.org,
- A pull request to the specification section of the Python Packaging User Guide,
- Opening an issue on this repository to ask the Council for a decision, once community discussion has reached a full or partial consensus and has settled down.
In addition to an acceptance, rejection, or request for modification, the Council may also request for the proposed change to be written up as a PEP in cases where it deems that necessary.