[Python-Dev] New functionality in micro releases (was: Documenting branch policy)

[Guido van Rossum]

>     Jack> ... but with Python 2.3 we have the situation that the majority of
>     Jack> Python installations (I think it's safe to take the guess that
>     Jack> MacOSX 10.3 installations will soon outnumber all other Pythons
>     Jack> together) will stay at 2.3 until the next release of MacOSX.

[Skip]
> I wouldn't be so sure of that.  Aside from the many Linux distributions
> which include some version of Python, it's clear that HP/Compaq is including
> some version of Python with their new Windows computers (based on all the
> newbie questions about this fielded at webmaster at python.org).  Still, the
> number of vendors delivering Python with their computers and the long string
> of problems caused by RedHat shipping Python 1.5.2 w/ 7.x long after 2.0 was
> history suggests that micro releases be reserved entirely for bug fixes.

I agree with Jack & Just that MacOSX is a strong argument for keeping
new features, no matter how harmless, out of micro releases.  But I'm
not sure how Red Hat shipping 1.5.2 proves this point; there were no
micro releases of 1.5 after that.

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