PyCon US 2026 - Open Source Community in Long Beach — Peter Grandstaff
Title: PyCon US 2026 - Open Source Community in Long Beach — Peter Grandstaff
URL Source: https://www.petergrandstaff.com/writing/pycon-us-2026/
Markdown Content: I went to PyCon US in Long Beach mostly to build connections for the Django Community, look for sponsors for DjangoCon US, and to spend time with friends. I'm happy to report the trip was a success.
My Day 1 - Thursday
I was glad to have a day with no real agenda. We had a DEFNA board meeting, which Jeff Triplett and I joined while sitting next to each other in the conference center. The board did officer elections, in which we kept all incumbents and added Velda Kiara as Vice President.
Later, I got lunch at The Omelette Inn. It was delightful. My Carnival Omelette really hit the spot, especially with a touch of their house made red salsa. The corned beef hash was good, but didn't taste like what I'm used to here in the southern US.
Dinner at the Dog Haus Biergarten. Really nice selection of hot dogs and sausages, served on grilled Hawaiian Rolls. I saw the King's Hawaiian West Coast headquarters in Torrance on the drive between LAX and Long Beach.
My Day 2 - Friday
I started the day with Lin Qiao's keynote. I'm not thrilled with it, but the topic is good. It just felt too much like a sponsored talk from Fireworks--one I would be thrilled to attend if it were labeled as such. I am big on open weight models and I like the platform. I've been scheming for a good use case to fine tune one but haven't had it come ripe yet. Soon.
I made up some DCUS sponsorship prospectus cards to hand out and ordered from a nearby Fedex.
Then on to Dawn Wages's talk on the human load of broken environments. Dawn's a great speaker, and I left thinking about Developer Experience and environments in a new way.
For lunch I ran over to & Waffles and got a Bacon Waffle, which I ate while walking back to the conference center, slightly late for my shift at the Django booth. It was ok, but not the firm texture I was hoping for. I need to get one of those true Belgian Waffles again, like the one I had in NYC at Wafels & Dinges.
The rest of my time was spent at the Django booth and the expo hall. It was great to see so many good friends from the community.
Dinner with a big crowd that was turned away from the tiny Thai restaurant we had aimed for. We found some good pizza nearby. I liked the Buffalo Brisket the best of the three we tried.
My Day 3 - Saturday
The day started with Pablo Galindo Salgado's "Horizonte de sucesos / Event Horizon"--the first Spanish language keynote in PyCon US history. There were live captions in English on a screen as well as in an app that also did an English voice version. I put in my headphones and gave it a shot. The voice was clear and understandable, accurate. But it was even more lagged than the captions. So after a bit I relied on the captions solely.
This was a fantastic keynote.
The analogy carried throughout was comparing Python (or other major open source projects) to the Sagrada Família, a cathedral in Spain that remains under construction since 1882.
So it goes with good open source. We worry about doing it right and building something that will stand the test of time. Generations of contributors lay these stones.
Caught the Zen of DevRel open space, which gave me some good insight into how companies approach their interaction with and support of open source communities. The consensus I heard was that they struggle to measure the value of this work, but sure notice the difference when they stop doing DevRel.
I attended the PSF Members Luncheon. It's good to hear that the organization is doing well, but the big question on my mind remained unanswered. When will the Grants program resume? That program has provided substantial funding for DjangoCon US's Opportunity Grants program for many years. It appears this will be the first year we won't have that funding, and DEFNA simply can't afford to make up the difference.
After that I caught the second half of Brett Slatkin's talk on the "Surprising Effectiveness of Immutable Data Structures". This was a good one, and showed off some uses for the frozendict data type coming in Python 3.15. I could have used those recently for fingerprinting a pile of data I was migrating. I made do with frozenset.
More Expo Hall and Django booth work after that.
Back to the Dog Haus for dinner. Had a Cowboy and a classic Bratwurst. Yum.
My Day 4 - Sunday
With a 10am flight back to North Carolina the next morning, this was my last conference day.
I attended amanda casari's keynote. I'm struggling to remember facts about it, but I remember the emotions I felt. It landed hard. I left feeling hopeful for the future of these open source communities we build.
I then sat down and put the finishing touches on a group photo of the Django crew that I was fixing up for use in the closing keynote by my friends Tim Schilling and Rachell Calhoun. The photo has been a common repost amongst the Django community since, so I'm glad I took the extra time to make it look just right. We couldn't get everyone in person for the group photo at the same time, so I had to add some folks in.
Note that, while I did composite in some of the folks, Guido van Rossum was not one of them. He was there for the group photo.
On Sunday the Expo Hall had transformed into a Job Fair, Poster Session, and Community Tables setup. I like the free form community tables, and I think you'll see some things like that at DjangoCon US this year in Chicago.
I skipped out to have my first taste of In-n-Out Burger for lunch. I'm very impressed with the quality (for fast food) and especially the service. The staff was super friendly and were doing a great job of making sure all the kids there had a good time. The Neapolitan milkshake was a highlight.
Back to the conference center to catch Tim and Rachell's keynote on Djangonaut Space, a program I've participated in twice as a Captain. I hope more projects will try contributor onboarding systems like this because it seems to create really engaged community members out of thin air. For a mature project, it's essential to keep the contribution pipeline going and build a strong community. This program is doing it. I do hope to see them able to increase their acceptance rate, though. I don't want people to feel like we're gatekeeping Django behind this program.
My own experience of having my Djangonaut team members become source code contributors and community organizers tells me the program is doing a lot of things right.
Pablo's use of a cathedral as an analogy for Python comes back to mind. Djangonaut Space is onboarding artisans and stewards for a major, mature open source project. Anyone can open a PR.
In 1999 Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It used the Bazaar as an analogy for open source projects where anyone could contribute. The Cathedral was an analogy for projects where the development happened behind closed doors, by invitation only.
Now we find the Bazaar has become the Cathedral?
I think this is a different Cathedral, one that has grown out of the Bazaar and is still being crafted and refined by anyone who shows up. This one is capable of bearing a huge load with its stone foundations, but the doors remain open.
I closed out the conference at the RevSys After Party. Then a late dinner around the corner at Bo-beau. It turned out to be where the PyCon organizers were having their dinner. I was glad to have a chance to thank them all for the excellent conference and get a few farewell hugs.
Afterwards
Leftover bread pudding for breakfast, then off to the airport. A Cava bowl there... outrageously priced. Flight delayed.
I talked with a lot of people about agentic engineering at PyCon US. My resolve to keep pushing to improve my fully local setup is strengthened.
Returning home, I reflect a lot on what we can do to make DjangoCon US better. What programming can we offer in alternative to the usual fare of people standing on a stage presenting? How do we intentionally strengthen the community through these events?
I also realize I need to publish more about what I'm up to. People at the conference knew what folks were up to and I realize it wasn't just because they were talking, it was because people actually publish things on their blogs and their social media. Ugh. I much prefer just talking to people.