[Python-Dev] PEP 407: New release cycle and introducing long-term support versions

[Antoine Pitrou]

Hello Dirkjan,

On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:32:22 +0100
Dirkjan Ochtman <dirkjan at ochtman.nl> wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 17, 2012, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> > We would like to propose the following PEP to change (C)Python's release
> > cycle. Discussion is welcome, especially from people involved in the
> > release process, and maintainers from third-party distributions of
> > Python.
> 
> As a Gentoo packager, this would mean much more work for us, unless all the
> non-LTS releases promised to be backwards compatible. I.e. the hard part
> for us is managing all the incompatibilities in other packages,
> compatibility with Python.

It might need to be spelt clearly in the PEP, but one of my assumptions
is that packagers choose on what release series they want to
synchronize. So packagers can synchronize on the LTS releases if it's
more practical for them, or if it maps better to their own release
model (e.g. Debian).

Do you think that's a valid answer to Gentoo's concerns?

> So I'm much more interested in
> finding ways of improving 2.7/3.2 uptake than adding more feature releases.

That would be nice as well, but I think it's orthogonal to the PEP.
Besides, I'm afraid there's not much we (python-dev) can do about it.
Some vendors (Debian, Redhat) will always lag behind the bleeding-edge
feature releases.

Regards

Antoine.