[Python-Dev] Proposal: Update PEP 1 to allow an explicit "Provisional" status for PEPs

[Nick Coghlan]

Hi folks,

The recent release of setuptools 8.0 brought with it the migration to
the more explicit version handling semantics defined in PEP 440.

Some of the feedback on that release showed us that we could really
use the equivalent of PEP 411 for interoperability PEPs as well as for
standard library modules: a way to say "this is well defined enough
for us to publish a reference implementation in the default packaging
tools, but needs additional user feedback before we consider it
completely stable".

The reasons for this are mostly pragmatic: the kinds of tweaks we're
talking about are small (in this specific case, changing the
normalised form when publishing release candidates from 'c' to 'rc' ,
when installation tools are already required to accept either spelling
as valid), but updating hyperlinks, other documentation references,
etc means that spinning a full PEP revision just for that change would
be excessively expensive in contributor time and energy.

So over on distutils-sig, we're currently considering PEP 440
provisional until we're happy with the feedback we're receiving on
setuptools 8.x and the upcoming pip 6.0 release.

However, I'd be happier if we could communicate that status more
explicitly through the PEP process, especially as I think such a
capability would be useful more generally as we move towards
implementing metadata 2.0 and potentially other enhancements for pip
7+ next year.

If folks are OK with this idea, I'll go ahead and make the appropriate
changes to PEP 1 and the PEP index generator. I'm also happy to file a
tracker issue, or write a short PEP, if folks feel making such a
change requires a little more formality in its own right.

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia