[Python-Dev] Fix or drop AIX buildbot?

Victor Stinner victor.stinner at gmail.com
Mon Apr 3 06:56:41 EDT 2017


Hi,

We have a "PPC64 AIX 3.x" buildbot slave which fails on cloning the
GitHub repository: "SSL certificate problem: unable to get local
issuer certificate".  It started to fail around Feb 11, 2017 (Build
#294), probably when buildbots moved to GitHub, after CPython moved to
GitHub.

First build which failed:
http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/PPC64%20AIX%203.x/builds/294

Moreover, some tests are failing since at least 2 years on AIX. Some examples:

* test_locale.test_strcoll_with_diacritic()
* test_socket.testIPv4toString()
* test_strptime

Last build which ran unit tests:
http://buildbot.python.org/all/builders/PPC64%20AIX%203.x/builds/293/steps/test/logs/stdio

For me, the principle of a CI is to detect *regressions*. But the AIX
buildbot is always failing because of known bugs. There are 3 options:

* Find a maintainer who quickly fix all known bugs. Unlike
* Skip tests known to fail on AIX. I know that many core developers
dislike this option, "hiding" bugs.
* Drop the buildbot

My favorite option is to drop the buildbot, since I'm tired of these
red buildbot slaves.

I added David Edelsohn to this email, he owns the buildbot, and I know
that he wants to get the best AIX support in Python.

The question is also which kind of support level do we provide per
platform? Full support, "best effort" or no support?

* Full support requires active maintainers, a CI with tests which pass, etc.
* "Best effort": fix bugs when someone complains and someone (else?)
provides a fix
* No support: reject proposed patches to add a partial support for a platform.

Victor


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