But he is still the BDFL, he's just on permanent vacation.

Have you tried reaching software engineers on vacation? “Sorry I’ll be camping on some rock on Mars where I’ll have spotty internet access so....”

Whenever they say that they either mean they only have 2G connection or they somehow managed to get a Gbit satellite phone so they could be online several hours a day from the woods

Am I one of the few that is away from work when on vacation? I don't even bring my work phone unless I'm more than an hour's drive from my house.

When I'm on vacation, I'm working on me. Not for the company.

Not me. When I say that, I really mean it! I don't even have cellular service at home and internet is coming from a 2-man WISP capped at 5mbps. Makes for a fun conversation when a user says the app is "slow" to load...it loads faster than HN at my house ;).

Yeah vacation isn't work time

It depends. My experience has been that contractors usually don't mind working on vacation while on a cruise whereas salaried people are like "I'm dead; don't reach me."

I think it depends on the type of person and on the type of job. As an independent contractor, you're more likely to have to at least be reachable while on vacation, due to the nature of the work, whereas a company with full-time employees is likely in a better position to have people go off the grid for a bit. That said, personally, even as a former contractor, I want NOTHING to do with work while I'm on vacation—to me, that's the entire point.

That’s the point.

Also it's 'BD'

Maybe he should have pushed harder on his Royal Prerogative to move things forwards

That is a really interesting point. Without some process formalizing his (desired it appears) removal as BDFL he could override any future construct that is built to guide python. The thought of a schism in the direction of python is worrying.

Edited to remove inadvertent backhanded compliment

His email made it pretty clear he doesn’t care how things move forward as it’s now up to the community to decide.

Yes, it is clear as of now. I expect if a chunk of his life's work looked like it was going to go off the rails he may want to reconsider.

At the end of the day, he's not actually a dictator. He's just a contributor with a lot of influence, borne out of respect, and that will remain true regardless of any formal or informal position.

Exactly, and if the community as a whole disagreed with him there is nothing stopping them from forking and forming their own org. Nothing except hard work that is...