[python-committers] Python 4.0 or Python 3.10?

[Yury Selivanov]

What's the current plan for what version of Python we release after 3.9?

The reason I'm asking this is because I frequently need to refer to
*that version* of Python in the documentation, especially when I'm
deprecating APIs or behavior.  Right now I'm saying "Python 4.0"
implying that 4.0 will be released right after 3.9.

I've heard multiple opinions on this subject. One of them is that we
should release 4.0 when we have a major new change, like removal of
the GIL or introduction of a JIT compiler.  On the other hand, we have
no estimate when we have such a change. We also don't want Python 4.0
to be backwards incompatible with Python 3.0 (at least not at the
scale of 2 vs 3).  So to me, it seems logical that we simply release
Python 4.0 after Python 3.9.  After all, after 3.9 Python will be
drastically different from 3.0 and from 2.7.  It sounds better. :)

Finally, I'm not sure we need a new governance in place to make this
decision or maybe we can make it now. That's why I'm posting this to
python-committers to see if core devs already have a consensus on
this.

Yury