For the past two years I have been employed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise to work on the various tools, libraries, and frameworks that make up the open-source Python HTTP ecosystem. This enormous investment by HPE into the OSS Python ecosystem has enabled a number of really important pieces of work, including the creation of a complete HTTP/2 stack and a number of associated projects, wider HTTP/2 support throughout the ecosystem in flagship projects like mitmproxy and twisted, and a number of substantial improvements in TLS support across the ecosystem. It has also enabled ongoing maintenance of a wide range of critically underfunded Python HTTP projects over these two years.
I’m enormously proud of the work that has been done across the spectrum of Python HTTP projects during my time at HPE. I think some extremely valuable investment was made in the community, and that a number of important steps forward were taken to ensure the long-term health of the Python HTTP ecosystem.
Unfortunately, this could not last. Due to HPE moving away from OpenStack investment its product portfolio and critical software depend increasingly less on Python. As a result, it was inevitable that if HPE needed to perform further cost reductions, my role would be one of the hardest to justify. That time has come.
I was notified today that due to the need to make cost reductions, my last day at HPE will be the 31st of August 2017.
I am enormously honoured to have had the opportunity to contribute to the Python community so heavily over the past two years. It has been a pleasure and a joy to work with this community, as well as to work with all my colleagues involved with upstream open source work at HPE.
I’m also enormously grateful to HPE for giving me this opportunity. HPE has done the Python community an enormous service by providing opportunities for both myself and Donald Stufft to contribute back to the community while drawing a salary as our full-time job. This opportunity doesn’t come along very often, and I could not be happier that HPE decided to spend its time on the Python community.
In the short term, I plan to take some time away from too much OSS work to decompress and spend time with friends and loved ones. I’ll be looking to start a new role sometime in September. I’ll also be investigating how to manage the possible reduction in the hours I have to spend maintaining OSS Python projects.
These past two years have been a blast, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. It’s been a privilege and an honour. I genuinely believe that the Python community has many, many strong years ahead of it, and the best is yet to come.