[Python-Dev] Official version support statement

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

"Martin v. Löwis" writes:

 > I'm all in favor of formalizing a policy of when Python releases
 > are produced, and what Python releases, and what kinds of changes
 > they may contain. However, such a policy should be addressed
 > primarily to contributors, as a guidance, not to users, as
 > a promise. So I have problems with both "official" and "support"
 > still.

I see your point, but I don't see how you propose to keep the users
from viewing the guidelines to developers as official policy regarding
support, albeit hard to interpret.

Also, it may just be me, but I don't see an official statement as a
"promise".  It's a "clarification".  '''This is what we're trying to
do, so you can make well-informed plans, and not be surprised when you
ask for something and we say "but we never thought about doing that,
and don't intend to".'''

 > The way we make policy statements is through the PEP process.

Creating the statement that way is important.  But publishing a PEP is
not enough.  Non-developer users don't read PEPs.

After thinking about it a bit, I do agree that "maintain" is more
appropriate than "support" (this is after my reply to Terry Reedy,
where I wrote that support was OK).  Support implies education and
adaptation to user needs, but even if that is done by the PSF, it's a
separate activity from the development and release processes.  While
maintenance does include response to user bug reports as part of the
development/release process.