[Python-Dev] [RELEASED] Python 2.7 alpha 2

[Brett Cannon]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 11:30, Neil Schemenauer <nas at arctrix.com> wrote:

> Benjamin Peterson <benjamin at python.org> wrote:
> > On behalf of the Python development team, I'm gleeful to announce
> > the second alpha release of Python 2.7.
>
> Thanks to everyone who contributed.
>
> > Python 2.7 is scheduled to be the last major version in the 2.x
> > series.
>
> Has this really been decided already? Maybe I missed it.


More or less. It was first discussed at the language summit last year and
has come up here a couple of times. If needed we can make it official in
terms of lifetime of 2.7, etc. at the language summit this year.


>  In my
> opinion, it does Python's reputation harm to make such a statement.
> Conservative users (probably the vast majority of Python users)
> don't like to hear that software they are considering using is
> nearing the end of its life.  What does it gain us to announce that
> the 2.x branch is dead aside from bugfixes?
>
> I propose that the 2.x branch be treated like 2.x.y branches: as
> long as there is sufficient volunteer labour, it should continue to
> live.  In order to avoid wasted development effort, it would be
> prudent to announce that unless a 2.8 release manager steps up,
> whatever is committed to the 2.x branch after the 2.7 release may
> never get released.
>
> Said another way, it's okay for the Python developers to decide to
> abandon 2.x and put their efforts into 3.x. It's not okay for them
> to prevent others from continuing to work on 2.x or to somehow make
> 2.x look worse so 3.x looks better. Python 3 needs to stand on its
> own terms and I'm confident it can.
>

I don't think ending the 2.x series at 2.7 makes it look bad compared to
3.2; it's simply the end of a development line like any other software
project. I suspect 2.7 will have a protracted bugfix window because so much
code runs on 2.x exclusively at the moment. And if core developers want to
continue to backport fixes past two years  from release they can (or however
long we decide to officially support 2.7).

No one is saying people still can't work on the code, just that python-dev
as an entity is not going to focus its effort on the 2.x series anymore and
people should not rely upon us to continue to focus new development efforts
in that series. If there are core developers who want to continue to do
bugfix releases then that's fine and I am happy to flag patches as needing
backports and let other's do the work after the standard two year
maintenance cycle, but I know I do not want to be held accountable as a core
developer to keep the 2.x going indefinitely. Maintaining four branches is
enough of a reason in my book to not keep the 2.x series going.

If there really is an outcry on this we can re-visit the issue, but as of
right now we need to move forward at some point and 2.7 seems like that good
point.

-Brett
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