The PyPI repository, the standard source of Python packages, has introduced new terms of service to support paid organization accounts, sparking a debate about how paid features introduced for sustainability might impact the service.

Ee Durbin of the Python Software Foundation (PSF), posted about new Terms of Service for PyPI, which includes a section on paid services, stating that “we charge fees to host Organizations for private entities, and for support services.”

Durbin said in the post that the new terms are needed to support paid Organization accounts, a much-requested feature that enable users from a commercial or community project to be assembled into teams and collaborate. Organization accounts are currently in beta, and were described back in April 2023 as “self-managed teams, with their own exclusive branded web addresses.” They will enable central management of editing permissions for users within the team.

At the time, Durbin said the goal was not only to provide a key new feature, but also to generate income for PyPI, enabling it to become “a staffed platform that can respond to support requests and attend to issues in a timeframe that is significantly faster than what our excellent (but thinly spread) largely volunteer team could reasonably handle.”

The pricing for Organization accounts is currently set at $5.00 per user per month, when the service comes out of closed beta.

PyPI is a hugely popular service. Two years ago, it served 235.7 billion downloads for 448,941 hosted projects, according to Durbin. Today, PyPI has over 600,000 projects. A public dashboard shows millions of requests to the service every minute.

In September 2023 Durbin said that implementing Organizations was delayed because “we severely underestimated the amount of work it would be to get our terms of service and billing together.”

A user concerned about whether PyPi was moving “towards a commercial, competitive package hosting model” sparked a debate on the official Python forum. 

The Organization features are optional and community projects can use them at no cost. Deb Nicholson, executive director of the PSF, said the new terms do not “change our non-profit mission, which is to provide CPython and the packages on PyPI to everyone forever, at no cost.”

The PyPI service, despite its critical role in the industry, depends on the work of volunteers. CPython core developer Paul Moore described his involvement in the packaging community and said: “it’s struggling under the weight of its own popularity … the individuals involved are doing their best under what are frankly near-impossible conditions.”

Moore questioned whether the fact that so many businesses now depend on Python and PyPI meant that “maybe a purely volunteer basis simply can’t work any more,” though he hoped this is not the case.  

In that light, moves to enable the sustainability of the service via opt-in paid features which might reduce the burden on volunteers without changing the free availability of PyPI may be exactly what is needed.