[Python-Dev] 2.7/3.2 release schedule

[Nick Coghlan]

Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>>> PEP 3003 states that Python 3.2 will be released 18-24 months after
>>> Python 3.1. Python 3.1 was released on June 2009-06-27 [1], so
>>> theoretically Python 3.2 should be released not before 2010-12-19 [2].
>> The PEP 3003 text isn't allowing for the fact that 3.1 is "3.0 as it
>> should have been", so the starting point for the 18-24 month rule of
>> thumb is actually back when 3.0 was released in Dec 2008. This was
>> discussed a fair bit back when the decision was made to do the short
>> release cycle between 3.0 and 3.1 in order to address some of the more
>> glaring shortcomings of the 3.0 release.
> 
> I agree with everybody else who said that
> 
> a) there was *no* consensus that the release cycle for 3.2 should be
>    shortened because of 3.1 being released early. I also remember the
>    opposite.
> 
> b) whatever past discussion may have been, it would be a mistake to
>    release 3.2 earlier than 18 months after 3.1.

Fair enough - I didn't remember that discussion all that well, but
assumed it had reached that consensus due to the lack of comment when
Benjamin originally posted his proposed schedule. Your response and
Guido's clearly indicate otherwise :)

If that wasn't the consensus, then all the dates should slide back 6
months (i.e. no alphas until June 2010). (I actually prefer that since
it gives me a chance to find a cleaner approach to the runpy.run_path
problem, but didn't want to rehash a discussion I thought we had already
had)

> Of course, 2.7 *could* be released by the proposed schedule; it just
> would have to be decoupled from 3.2 (just as 2.6 eventually got
> decoupled from 3.0).

That leads to a 2.x version with features that aren't yet available in a
3.x version though. I thought we weren't planning on doing that anymore.

> I personally think that decoupling the releases would be best, i.e.
> not start thinking about 3.2 for another 6 months.

Or just have the timing be 18 months for 3.2 and 24 months for 2.7 (i.e.
push the first alpha of both back to June next year).

Cheers,
Nick.

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