[Python-Dev] The end of 2.7

[Gregory P. Smith]

On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 6:53 AM, Christian Tismer <tismer at stackless.com>wrote:

>  Hi Skip,
>
>
> On 07.04.13 14:10, Skip Montanaro wrote:
>
> I started writing this last night before the flurry of messages which
> arrived overnight.  I thought originally, "Oh, Skip, you're being too
> harsh."  But now I'm not so sure.  I think you are approaching the
> issue of 2.7's EOL incorrectly. Of those discussing the end of Python
> 2.7, how many of you still use it in your day-to-day work? Have any of
> you yet to move to Python 3?  It sounds like many people at PyCon are
> still 2.x users.
>
> Where I work (a trading firm that uses Python as just one of many
> different pieces of technology, not a company where Python is the core
> technology upon which the firm is based) we are only just now
> migrating from 2.4 to 2.7. I can't imagine we'll have migrated to
> Python 3 in two years.  It's not like we haven't seen this coming, but
> you can only justify moving so fast with technology that already
> works, especially if, like Python, you use it with lots of other
> packages (most/all of which themselves have to be ported to Python 3)
> and in-house software.
>
> I think the discussion should focus on who's left on 2.x and why, not,
> "yeah, releases every six months for the next couple years ought to do
> it."
>
>
>
> when I read this, I was slightly shocked. You know what?
> """
> We are pleased to announce the release of *Python 2.4, final* on November
> 30, 2004.
> """
>
> I know that companies try to save (time? money?) something by not upgrading
> software, and this is extremely annoying.
>

You're not looking at it from the users perspective.  They see:

"we are pleased to announce that RHEL 4 will be supported until the year
3325"

and continue to use everything that it ships with and only that.  its their
own loss for not investing in maintaining infrastructure of their own
rather than investing in a support contract from their vendor but it is a
valid choice none the less.  it has nothing to do with what python-dev
chooses to do release wise.

I think this thread has already settled the question that Benjamin set out
to ask: it doesn't matter when we stop issuing bug fix releases of 2.7,
users will exist long enough for even today's deniers to hate them for
using an old version.

If Benjamin wants to see bug fix releases made for two years, great!  If
not, no big deal either. We as python-dev are a bunch of volunteers and it
is up to each one of us if we'll bother to continue back porting fixes or
investigating bugs on 2.7 or not. I strongly suspect that many of us will
only continue to do so as long as 2.7 is relevant to our day jobs.

We don't need to close the 2.7 branch to commits and bug fixes.  Ever.  But
most of us will stop caring about making changes to it at some point.  For
me that point is after 3.4.

my 3 cents,
-gps
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