[Python-Dev] Deprecating ports

[Martin v. Löwis]

The AtheOS patch, and patch 554718 trigger, for me, the question that
we need a way to stop supporting certain platforms. I would recommend
a two-phase approach: In release X, announce that support for certain
platforms is "dead"; in release X+1, actively remove the code
introduced to support them.

In the specific case of patch 554718, I'd recommend to stop supporting
"old" OpenBSD releases already with Python 2.3 (or perhaps even with
2.2.x); some OpenBSD expert should give us a conservative definition
of "old" (requiring 1.x sounds conservative to me).

I'm sure many patches to support more recent releases have silently
broken older releases. For many of the older releases, we will never
be able to find out, since nobody is using them anymore.

With the announcement of removing code for a certain platform, we will
give users of that platform a chance to indicate that they are still
interested in using new Python releases on those platforms. If nobody
contributes patches, or atleast indicates that the ports are still
working, we should remove the dead code.

High on my list would be to remove the support for the various
pthreads drafts.

Regards,
Martin