pandas - Python Data Analysis Library

The pandas Project (The Project) is an open source software project affiliated with the 501(c)3 NumFOCUS Foundation. The goal of The Project is to develop open source software for data ingest, data preparation, data analysis, and data visualization for the Python programming language. The Software developed by The Project is released under the BSD (or similar) open source license, developed openly and hosted in public GitHub repositories under the pandas GitHub organization. Examples of Project Software include the main pandas code repository and the pandas-stubs library.
Through its affiliation with NumFOCUS, The Project has the right to receive tax-deductible donations in the United States of America.
The Project is developed by a team of distributed developers, called Contributors. Contributors are individuals who have contributed code, documentation, designs or other work to one or more Project repositories. Anyone can be a Contributor. Contributors can be affiliated with any legal entity or none. Contributors participate in the project by submitting, reviewing and discussing GitHub Pull Requests and Issues and participating in open and public Project discussions on GitHub, mailing lists, and elsewhere. The foundation of Project participation is openness and transparency.
Here is a list of the current Contributors to the main pandas repository:
https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/graphs/contributors
There are also many other Contributors listed in the logs of other repositories of the pandas project.
The Project Community consists of all Contributors and Users of the Project. Contributors work on behalf of and are responsible to the larger Project Community and we strive to keep the barrier between Contributors and Users as low as possible.
The Project is formally affiliated with the 501(c)3 NumFOCUS Foundation (https://numfocus.org), which serves as its fiscal sponsor, may hold project trademarks and other intellectual property, helps manage project donations and acts as a parent legal entity. NumFOCUS is the only legal entity that has a formal relationship with the project (see Institutional Partners section below).
This section describes the governance and leadership model of The Project.
The foundations of Project governance are:
Traditionally, Project leadership was provided by a BDFL (Wes McKinney) and subset of Contributors, called the Core Team, whose active and consistent contributions have been recognized by their receiving “commit rights” to the Project GitHub repositories. In general all Project decisions are made through consensus among the Core Team with input from the Community. The BDFL can, but rarely chooses to, override the Core Team and make a final decision on a matter.
While this approach has served us well, as the Project grows and faces more legal and financial decisions and interacts with other institutions, we see a need for a more formal governance model. Moving forward The Project leadership will consist of a BDFL and Core Team. We view this governance model as the formalization of what we are already doing, rather than a change in direction.
The Project will have a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life), who is currently Wes McKinney. As Dictator, the BDFL has the authority to make all final decisions for The Project. As Benevolent, the BDFL, in practice chooses to defer that authority to the consensus of the community discussion channels and the Core Team. It is expected, and in the past has been the case, that the BDFL will only rarely assert his/her final authority. Because it is rarely used, we refer to BDFL’s final authority as a “special” or “overriding” vote. When it does occur, the BDFL override typically happens in situations where there is a deadlock in the Core Team or if the Core Team ask the BDFL to make a decision on a specific matter. To ensure the benevolence of the BDFL, The Project encourages others to fork the project if they disagree with the overall direction the BDFL is taking. The BDFL is chair of the Core Team (see below) and may delegate his/her authority on a particular decision or set of decisions to any other Core Team Member at his/her discretion.
The BDFL can appoint his/her successor, but it is expected that the Core Team would be consulted on this decision. If the BDFL is unable to appoint a successor (e.g. due to death or illness), the Core Team will choose a successor by voting with at least 2/3 of the Core Team members voting in favor of the chosen successor. At least 80% of the Core Team must participate in the vote. If no BDFL candidate receives 2/3 of the votes of the Core Team, the Core Team members shall propose the BDFL candidates to the Main NumFOCUS board, who will then make the final decision.
The Project's Core Team will consist of Project Contributors who have produced contributions that are substantial in quality and quantity, and sustained over at least one year. The overall role of the Core Team is to ensure, through working with the BDFL and taking input from the Community, the long-term well-being of the project, both technically and as a community.
During the everyday project activities, Core Team participate in all discussions, code review and other project activities as peers with all other Contributors and the Community. In these everyday activities, Core Team do not have any special power or privilege through their membership on the Core Team. However, it is expected that because of the quality and quantity of their contributions and their expert knowledge of the Project Software that the Core Team will provide useful guidance, both technical and in terms of project direction, to potentially less experienced contributors.
The Core Team and its Members play a special role in certain situations. In particular, the Core Team may:
To become eligible for being a Core Team Member an individual must be a Project Contributor who has produced contributions that are substantial in quality and quantity, and susta