[Python-Dev] Deprecating ports

[Guido van Rossum]

> 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.

+1.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)