[Python-Dev] PEP 476: Enabling certificate validation by default!

[Terry Reedy]

On 9/2/2014 7:47 PM, Glyph Lefkowitz wrote:
>
> On Sep 2, 2014, at 4:28 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com
> <mailto:ncoghlan at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> On 3 Sep 2014 09:08, "David Reid" <dreid at dreid.org
>> <mailto:dreid at dreid.org>> wrote:

>> > Clearly this change should be backported to Python2.
>>
>> Proposing to break backwards compatibility in a maintenance release (...)

For code that depends on a bug, fixing the bug breaks compatibility 
between releases without and with the fix.  Nothing new.  We 
occasionally don't backpart disruptive bugfixes because of that. We also 
backport some security fixes to otherwise unmaintained versions.

> As we keep saying, this is not a break in backwards compatibility, it's
> a bug fix.

Disagreement on whether changing the default for certificate validation 
is a 'bugfix' or 'enhancement' (and in the colloquial or python tracker 
sense) the seems like the crux of the disagreement here.  The case for 
'bug', at least in the colloquial meaning, is at least plausible. On the 
other hand, the tracker meaning of 'behavior' issue (contrary to 
intention and doc) is more strict in including implementation bugs but 
not necessarily design bugs.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy