[Python-Dev] maintenance of the ElementTree / cElementTree packages in the Python standard library

[Eli Bendersky]

Hello Fredrik,

Recently a discussion came up on the python-dev mailing list regarding
continued maintenance of the ElementTree & cElementTree packages which
are part of the standard library, and which were originally
contributed by you.

There currently exists an unclear situation with respect to the active
maintainer(s) of these packages. On one hand, PEP 360 states that the
packages are officially maintained in your repositories and all
problems should be assigned to you and fixed upstream. On the other
hand, it appears that there has already been made a considerable
amount of work (e.g. http://codereview.appspot.com/207048/show) solely
within the Python repositories, as well as the port to Python 3 which
now lives in all 3.x branches. In other words, de-facto the package
has been forked in the Python repository. Note that no changes (AFAIU)
have been made to the ElementTree *API*, only to the implementations
living in the stdlib.

I'd like to understand your point of view on this topic. There are
currently 23 open issues on the package(s) in the Python tracker, and
some additional plans are being made (such as 'import ElementTree'
importing the C implementation by default, falling back on the Python
implementation if that's unavailable). Is that alright with you that
all such new fixes and developments are being made by Python code
developers in the Python repositories directly, without waiting for
your approval to submit them upstream?

Thanks in advance,
Eli