Behind the Commit
Behind the Commit is a podcast that explores the stories and technologies shaping open source across Europe and beyond. Host Mia Bajić interviews maintainers about the tools they build, why they matter, and the challenges of maintaining them in an evolving ecosystem. The show also examines how open source is changing in the age of AI.
Episodes
Daniel Moran | 40M+ Monthly Downloads: The Solo Maintainer Behind FakeRedis
How do you maintain a Python package downloaded more than 40 million times every month, while working on it in your free time?In this episode of Behind the Commit, Mia talks with Daniel Moran, the solo maintainer of FakeRedis, a pure-Python Redis-compatible implementation used for testing, compatibility checks, and server-agnostic development.Daniel shares how FakeRedis grew from a personal soluti
Trailer – Daniel Moran | 40M+ Monthly Downloads: The Solo Maintainer Behind FakeRedis
From 1–2 million to over 40 million downloads per month. Explore 73 variations and discover the DragonFly flavor, its commands, and supported arguments.
Emily Morehouse: Becoming a CPython Core Dev, the Walrus Operator and Chairing PyCon
In this episode, I'm chatting with Emily Morehouse — CPython core developer, former Python Steering Council member, PSF Fellow, and co-founder and director of engineering at Cuttlesoft. She holds three degrees in theater, computer science, and criminology, and picked up Python in college simply because it was more fun than C++.After Guido van Rossum announced at a Python conference that he wanted
Emily Morehouse: Becoming a CPython Core Dev, the Walrus Operator and Chairing PyCon
In this episode, I'm chatting with Emily Morehouse — CPython core developer, former Python Steering Council member, PSF Fellow, and co-founder and director of engineering at Cuttlesoft. She holds three degrees in theater, computer science, and criminology, and picked up Python in college simply because it was more fun than C++.After Guido van Rossum announced at a Python conference that he wanted
Is Your Vacuum Cleaner Spying on You? Kushal Das on Privacy and Digital Rights
In this episode, I'm chatting with Kushal Das — public interest technologist, core team member at the Tor Project, core developer of CPython, and director at the Python Software Foundation. He is also the founder of dgplug and a maintainer of SecureDrop — the platform journalists use to communicate securely with whistleblowers. We talk about why privacy is increasingly hard to protect, the hidden
Trailer – Is Your Vacuum Cleaner Spying on You? Kushal Das on Privacy and Digital Rights
In this upcoming episode, I chat with Kushal Das — core team member at the Tor Project, core developer of CPython, and director at the Python Software Foundation. We talk about the hidden cameras inside your robot vacuum cleaner, why encryption is non-negotiable, and what it actually takes to protect people's privacy online.
The Best of Two Languages: Connecting C++ & Python with Cristián Maureira-Fredes
Have you ever wondered what astrophysics has in common with the software running in your car, your coffee machine, and NASA's internal tools? In this episode, I sit down with Cristian Maureira-Fredes, a PhD in Astrophysics who decided to leave academia to join the software industry. Today, he is a Research and Development Principal Manager at The Qt Company, where he leads the team behind Qt for P
Trailer – The Best of Two Languages: Connecting C++ & Python with Cristián Maureira-Fredes
What does a PhD in Astrophysics have in common with the software running in your car, your coffee machine, and NASA’s internal tools? In this episode I sit down with Cristian Maureira-Fredes, a Research and Development Principal Manager at The Qt Company. Cristian leads the team behind Qt for Python (PySide6) and the Qt Core team.
Inside PyPI: Maria Ashna on Supporting Python's Package Index
In this episode, I'm chatting with Maria Ashna — PyPI support specialist at the Python Software Foundation and founder of Magic Lightbulb, a tech and product consulting firm. PyPI serves nearly a million developers and is the backbone of Python's entire package ecosystem — maintained by a team of just four people. Maria shares what her role actually looks like day to day, how she cleared a backlog
Trailer – Inside PyPI: Maria Ashna on Supporting Python's Package Index
In this upcoming episode, I chat with Maria Ashna, PyPI support specialist at the Python Software Foundation. We discuss what it's actually like to support nearly a million Python developers with a team of four, the edge cases nobody thinks about, and what PyPI was called before it was PyPI. Full episode coming out soon!
Why Python is Slow: Antonio Cuni on SPy and Statically Compiled Python
Antonio Cuni (principal engineer at Anaconda, author of SPy, developer of PyScript and PyPy, co-founder of the HPy project, and creator of PDB++, Fancy Completer, and VMProf) shares why Python is slow and how SPy, a new statically compiled variant of Python, aims to be as fast as C while staying as Pythonic as Python. We discuss the trade-off between dynamic features and performance, how SPy's "re
Trailer – Why Python is Slow: Antonio Cuni on SPy and Statically Compiled Python
In this upcoming episode, I chat with Antonio Cuni, the creator of SPy and long-time PyPy developer. We discuss why Python is slow, how a statically compiled Python variant can be as fast as C while still feeling Pythonic, and the "red and blue" model behind SPy's compilation pipeline.Full episode coming out soon!
Maintaining 80 OSS Projects: Anthony Sottile on pre-commit and Developer Tooling
In this episode, I'm chatting with Anthony Sottile — creator of pre-commit, primary maintainer of flake8, core contributor to pytest, and maintainer of around 80 open source projects across the Python ecosystem. He's also a GitHub Star and a popular live coding streamer on Twitch under the name "anthonywritescode". We dig into how he actually manages all of it, the origin story of pre-commit, the
Trailer – Maintaining 80 OSS Projects: Anthony Sottile on pre-commit and Developer Tooling
In this upcoming episode, I chat with Anthony Sottile — creator of pre-commit and maintainer of around 80 open source projects. We talk about how he actually manages it all, the surprising bugs he's found in NPM and Git along the way, and the psychological side of open source that nobody talks about.
AI-Written Code: Armin Ronacher on AI Agents and the Future of Programming
Armin Ronacher (creator of Flask, previously Sentry’s VP of Platform, and currently founder of a startup Earendil) shares his experience building a startup where 90% of the code is AI-generated. We discuss which programming languages work best with AI agents, why Python's ecosystem makes life harder for AI, and what skills programmers need to stay relevant in the age of AI.Outline00:00 Episode hi
Trailer – AI-Written Code: Armin Ronacher on AI Agents and the Future of Programming
In this upcoming episode, I chat with Armin Ronacher, the creator of Flask. We discuss which programming languages work best with AI agents, why Python's ecosystem makes life harder for both humans and AI, and what skills programmers need to stay relevant in the age of AI.
AI-Generated Music: Tech, Copyright & Real-World Applications with Mateusz Modrzejewski
In this episode, I talk with Mateusz Modrzejewski, a professional musician and AI researcher and assistant professor at the Warsaw University of Technology, about AI-generated music: how it works, what artists think about it, the big copyright questions, and where AI tools can genuinely support the creative process instead of replacing it.Outline00:00 Episode highlights and introduction00:49 Thoug
Trailer – AI-Generated Music: Tech, Copyright & Real-World Applications with Mateusz Modrzejewski
AI-generated music is on the rise, but what does that mean from a technical and creative perspective? In this upcoming episode, I talk with Mateusz Modrzejewski, a professional musician and AI researcher, about AI-generated music: how it works, what artists think about it, the big copyright questions, and where AI tools can genuinely support the creative process instead of replacing it.
How To Make Web More Sustainable? – Chat with Thibaud Colas
In this episode, I’m chatting with Thibaud Colas — Product Lead & Engineering Manager at Torchbox, Wagtail product lead, and current President of the Django Software Foundation. We talk about digital sustainability: why the internet’s energy use matters, how to measure it, why performance is important for emissions, whether rewriting everything in Rust is the only solution, and why we should k
Trailer – How To Make Web More Sustainable? – Chat with Thibaud Colas
What is digital sustainability and why does it matter?In this upcoming episode, I chat with Thibaud Colas, Product Lead & Engineering Manager at Torchbox, Wagtail product lead, and current President of the Django Software Foundation. We talk about digital sustainability: why the internet’s energy use matters, how to measure it, why performance is important for emissions, whether rewriting ever
Why FastAPI Became Python’s Fastest‑Growing Framework – Chat with Sebastián Ramírez
In this episode, I’m chatting with Sebastián Ramírez — the creator of FastAPI, Typer, and SQLModel, and founder of FastAPI Labs. FastAPI has become one of Python’s fastest-growing web frameworks (adoption jumped from 14% to 25% among developers between 2021 and 2023!), and we dig into how it got here and what’s next on the roadmap. Sebastián shares behind-the-scenes insights into its success, his
Trailer - Why FastAPI Became Python’s Fastest‑Growing Framework – Chat with Its Creator
FastAPI has become one of Python’s fastest-growing web frameworks!In this upcoming episode, I chat with Sebastián Ramírez, the creator of FastAPI, Typer, and SQLModel, and founder of FastAPI Labs. We talk about why FastAPI became so popular, the challenges of maintaining a fast-growing open source project, and what’s next for FastAPI and FastAPI Cloud.Full episode coming out next week!
Behind the Python Release: Motivation, Fails & Rituals with Łukasz, Pablo & Hugo
Have you ever wondered how a CPython release works? In this episode, I talk with Hugo van Kemenade, Pablo Galindo Salgado, and Łukasz Langa about CPython release management.About the guestsHugo van Kemenade – Release Manager for Python 3.14 & 3.15, currently employed at the Sovereign Tech Agency as a fellow. Maintainer of open-source projects such as Pillow. Co-organizer of local Python events
Trailer – Behind the Python Release: Motivation, Fails & Rituals with Łukasz, Pablo & Hugo
Sneak peak of the episode about CPython release. Have you ever wondered how a CPython release works? In this episode, we talk with Hugo van Kemenade, Łukasz Langa, and Pablo Galindo Salgado about Python release management. About the guests Hugo van Kemenade – Release Manager for Python 3.14 & 3.15, currently employed at the Sovereign Tech Agency as a fellow. Maintainer of open-source projects
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