[Python-buildbots] Need for another macOS builder for the buildbot fleet?

[Ned Deily]

On Aug 2, 2019, at 17:22, Tal Einat <taleinat at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 12:02 AM Ned Deily <nad at python.org> wrote:
> 
> > I 've had great success over the years running macOS VMs in VMWare Fusion. I totally depend on them on building python.org macOS installers.  I have VMs for the most recent updates of all macOS releases back to 10.5 and can run them under Fusion on any reasonably current macOS system. 
> 
> That's very interesting! It only runs on host macOS systems though, right?

Fusion only runs on macOS hosts, yes, though there are other VMWare host products for various other systems. I believe, though have not verified myself, that VMWare hosts enforce that macOS guests only run on macOS hosts to adhere to Apple license restrictions but there may be unsupported community hacks to get around that. On the other hand, Fusion on macOS hosts runs pretty much all other types of guest VMs: I run Windows and various Linux and FreeBSD guest VMs under Fusion on macOS.

> Why do you need it for building python.org releases?

Because the macOS installers are built on the minimum macOS version they support, i.e. the 10.9+ variants are built on a 10.9 system etc. This eliminates problems with needing to support and test weak linking and other backwards compatibility issues.

  --
    Ned Deily
    nad at python.org -- []