We have some very exciting news to announce today: we (Marius and Kevin) are joining Anaconda! Anaconda is a well-known company that produces open-source Python software, and we think that by joining them we can significantly accelerate the trajectory of Pyston, our faster implementation of Python.

[See the corresponding announcement on the Anaconda Blog: https://www.anaconda.com/blog/pyston-team-joins-anaconda]

What will this look like

Things will largely look the same from the outside, except now we will have access to more resources and expertise to move faster. In particular:

• Pyston remains an open-source project with the same license as CPython
• Pyston won’t be tied to using conda
• We still get to set our roadmap, with potentially less time devoted to monetization work. By joining a company with a mature and efficient monetization scheme, we’ll spend more time doing core feature work.
• Once we need it, we’ll have a governance model that is separate from Anaconda
• We may develop integrations with other Anaconda projects in ways that are beneficial to both products
• We’ll continue to work with the community on the other Python performance projects that are underway

Why Anaconda

We talked to a couple of companies about a possible joint future for Pyston, and Anaconda stood out to us in terms of alignment. They’re already doing similar work with Numba and their other projects, and they have a demonstrated open source commitment that means a lot to us.

We also are excited about the possibility of having better integrations with some of their complementary products. We don’t have anything to announce right now, but we already had conda integration on our roadmap, and now that it’s easier, it’s more likely to happen sooner. Together, we are very excited about possibly integrating the features of Numba and Pyston: the two projects target different layers of the stack, and the hope is that by combining features, we will be able to explore more of the space of possible Python optimizations.

And finally, the medium-term roadmap for Pyston mainly involves work to get Pyston into more peoples’ hands. In this sense, we’re finding alternative Python implementations require much more work than simply making them faster, and joining a leading Python distributor will let us short-cut a number of these steps.

The Future

Now that we have Anaconda’s sponsorship, we are planning out a short-term roadmap for the project. We will announce more when it is ready, so stay tuned! In the meantime, give Pyston a try and let us know how it works for you on our Github issue tracker or our Discord channel.