“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

Reading that thread is like reading an actual Monty Python plot.

Guido van Rossum has given his life for this language and besides the obligatory 'thanks for all the fish' there isn't even a single person who stops the clock to evaluate what went wrong that they pushed out the person that started this all.

Instead it's 'kthxbye' and they're already dividing up the cake to see who gets to rule.

Not the nicest moment in the history of FOSS, I wonder what kind of a mess will ensue when Linus steps down.

What are they supposed to do? Python is bigger than GvR. A pretty big chunk of the tech industry depends on it. We were probably long past the point where a "BDFL" was healthy --- not because of any moral issue, but because over the long term the market is going to dictate where Python goes and how it grows, and people should stop kidding themselves that it might be otherwise.

I don't think it's at all unseemly that people involved in the Python project respond to GvR's LOA announcement by working out continuity. As someone who has to interact with a lot of Python code professionally, that's exactly the response I'd hope for.

Some root cause analysis would be nice. Because whatever went wrong that caused GvR to step down isn't solved and the future structure whatever form it will take will most likely not be quite as resilient against this as GvR was.

Also, an apology for the way this turned out would be seemly.

Whatever apology GvR is owed, it's none of my business. The post-BDFL continuity plan is super relevant to me, but I can say with some confidence that GvR does not need me as a witness to whatever psychological remediation he may or may not need for the assignment expression debacle. It's not my place to psychoanalyze him, and he rather clearly didn't ask me to.

So again: why, as a professional who interacts with the Python ecosystem, am I interested in anything more than what is already happening on the thread?

Are you not interested in what caused the leader of a community to step down? Do you not think that that information would be helpful in sustaining the community? This event is not business as usual, it should be considered with great care.

Not really? I'm not suggesting that great care shouldn't be taken; I'm suggesting that there's no evidence that it hasn't, and that neither you nor me are particularly important players in the story of what is happening, and that nobody owes us an explanation. Certainly, a concerted effort to prevent GvR from stepping down as BDFL seems silly.

If a parent tells their 25 year old child that they’re done with it and sick and tired of the job, I think the child should at least look inside themselves and assess whether anything they did that prompted that should be changed.