Contributed Python Software

Tim Middleton has announced his Vaults of Parnassus: Python Resources, a very cool repository of Python software. We are encouraging everyone writing or looking for third-party Python software to use Parnassus, and because Parnassus is a much better solution for tracking contributed Python software, the old collection list which used to be on this page has been retired.

How to Contribute Python Software

You write some cool Python module or application, and you'd like to make it available to the wider Python community. How do you go about doing this? Below are some general guidelines on what you should do to package, register, and announce your software.

If you're contributing a patch to Python, you should instead read the Python Patch Guidelines.

Create your distribution. First of all, you might want to review the Distutils-SIG for information on how to package up your software. This SIG is chartered with designing future standard Python module distribution utilities. While the SIG's work is not yet complete, it is far enough along to give you some good guidelines on how best to put together a package for other Python users.
Make your package available. Next, you need to make your package available on the 'net some where. The best thing to do is to put your package on your own Web or FTP site. If you don't have such a site readily available, you might consider getting one of those free Web accounts that seem to be all over the place these days. Any of these should be adequate for disseminating small Python packages.
Another alternative is to get a free Starship account by becoming a PSA member. This way you can gain fame with your Python software and help support the continued development of Python at the same time!
As a final resort, we will provide some limited amount of anonymous FTP space for folks who absolutely cannot find any other way to make their modules available. See below for FTP uploading guidelines.
Register your package. Once your stuff is available on the 'net, you'll want to register it with The Vaults of Parnassus. We'd like to see Parnassus become the central registry of all Python contributed software, so you should definitely register your software there. If you're looking for Python software, Parnassus should be your first stop!
Make an announcement. Finally, you'll want to announce your software to the Python world! The best way to do this is to send an email to python-announce@python.org describing your software. See below for posting guidelines. You might also want to post the same announcement to the general Python list python-list@python.org (mirrored as the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.python).
Message posted to python-announce with the proper format eventually make it to the recent news section of the main Python.Org home page, and also to our Python channel on My Netscape.
Sit back and await your fame.

Python-announce mailing list guidelines

Here is the comp.lang.python.announce posting guidelines (A.K.A. the c.l.py.a FAQ). These are posted bi-weekly to the comp.lang.python, comp.lang.python.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers newsgroups. Your announcement will be parsed by automated scripts which update other lists of recent Python news, so failure to follow the guidelines may prevent your announcement from reaching the whole Python community.

Python.Org anonymous FTP guidelines

If you absolutely, positively cannot find any way to make your Python software available on the 'net, and cannot join the PSA, making you eligible for a free Starship account, you can upload your Python software to our anonymous FTP site.

Please note that we'll be very scrupulous in what we agree to make available on our site. It must have obvious and useful Python content, you must have made an effort to provide your software via other means, and you must follow the upload guidelines. Because our anonymous FTP site is of low priority to us, it may be a while before we respond to your upload. All this to say that you really should try to find other ways to disseminate your package (and there are many free or low cost ways to do this!)

Our FTP site has a write-only incoming directory at ftp.python.org/incoming. You can upload files to this directory, but you cannot read or list the directory. This is to prevent us from becoming a warez or porn repository! The stuff you leave here does not become externally visible until someone at Python.Org moves it to the publically-readable parts of the FTP site.

To have that happen, put your stuff in /incoming under a distinctive name. Check the current FTP archives to make sure your package is uniquely named, and you should include the package's version number in it's file name.

You must include a brief, separate readme file named yourstuff.README which must include contact information (i.e. an email address), and a description of what the software does. We reserve the right to completely ignore any uploads that are missing this information.

Then, send an email to ftpmaster@python.org notifying us of your upload. Again, tell us who you are, what the stuff is for, and the names of the pieces you put here. Make sure that your return address is valid, so we can contact you if necessary! We'll let you know where we moved your package to so you can include this information in your announcement.