[Python-Dev] state of 2.4 final release

[Anthony Baxter]

I didn't see any replies to the last post, so I'll ask again with a 
better subject line - as I said last time, as far as I'm aware, I'm
not aware of anyone having done a fix for the issue Tim identified
( http://www.python.org/sf/1069160 )

So, my question is: Is this important enough to delay a 2.4 final for?
My plan is currently to release it _this_ _Tuesday_, so I really need
an answer soon...

I've attached Tim's original message at the end here. At the moment,
I'm inclined to say "if it's not fixed, it won't kill us". But that's
admittedly my own biases - threading bugs annoy me <wink>

I'm happy to defer to more knowlegable types, though - is this so
bad that it merits delaying the release? I can't make time to look
at it before then - I'm still writing slides for a couple of talks at OSDC.

Anthony



From: Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com>
To: Python Dev <python-dev at python.org>
Date: 2004-11-19 13:08


This one is a puzzler.  See

    http://www.python.org/sf/1069160

for details.  The short course is that the PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc()
implementation fell into a common trap, and can cause segfaults under
rare conditions (like every other Python thread segfault bug we've
ever had).

This is easily repaired (although I've got no interest in doing the
coding, or even in contriving a test case -- this was an obvious "by
eyeball" bug).

The puzzle is how to treat this wrt 2.4.  Since it's a critical bug, I
suppose it "should" force another release candidate.  OTOH, this is a
C-only API (there's no exposure from Python) that's never used in the
core.  We could add code to make it segfault every time <wink>, and
nothing in the distribution would notice.

OTOH, if we broke its intended behavior while fixing the bug, we'd
never know that either.  "Never used in the core" means never -- the
function isn't tested.

On the third hand, it's a simple function with an obvious segfault
mode that has an obvious fix.

I'll leave it to the release manager <wink>.