[Python-Dev] folding cElementTree behind ElementTree in 3.3

[Eli Bendersky]

>> What happens now? Do we give up on touching it until Fredrik Lundh
>> decides on a come-back or some person who is willing to commit 5 years
>> is found? Or do we just *keep* maintaining it in the stdlib as we do
>> with other modules, fixing bugs, tests, documentation and so on?
>
> If we really can't find somebody dedicated to that code base enough,
> we should consider removing it from the standard library.

Does this imply that each and every package in the stdlib currently
has a dedicated maintainer who promised to be dedicated to it? Or
otherwise, should those packages that *don't* have a maintainer be
removed from the standard library?

Isn't that a bit harsh? ElementTree is an overall functional library
and AFAIK the preferred stdlib tool for processing XML for many
developers. It currently needs some attention to fix a few issues,
expose the fast C implementation by default when ElementTree is
imported, and improve the documentation. At this point, I'm interested
enough to work on these - given that the political issue with Fredrik
Lundh is resolved. However, I can't *honestly* say I promise to
maintain the package until 2017. So, what's next?

Eli