[Python-Dev] Python 3 as a Default in Linux Distros

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Bohuslav Kabrda <bkabrda at redhat.com> wrote:
> - What should user get after using "yum install python"?
> There are basically few ways of coping with this:
> 1) Just keep doing what we do, eventually far in the future drop "python" package and never provide it again (= go on only with python3/python4/... while having "yum install python" do nothing).
> 2) Do what is in 1), but when "python" is dropped, use virtual provide (*) "python" for python3 package, so that "yum install python" installs python3.
> 3), 4) Rename python to python2 and {don't add, add} virtual provide "python" in the same way that is in 1), 2)
> 5) Rename python to python2 and python3 to python at one point. This makes sense to me from the traditional "one version in distro + possibly compat package shipping the old" approach in Linux, but some say that Python 2 and Python 3 are just different languages [3] and this should never be done.


If a user's (rather than dev's) perspective is of value, I'm a Debian
and Ubuntu user who wields Python as a multi-context weapon. Typing
"packagemanager install python" (for me that's apt-get, for you yum,
same diff) should get the one against which most other packages are
going to depend. Since your policy is to move people forward, that's
most likely going to be Python 3, unless you have a lot of packages
that simply haven't yet moved.

Your fifth option seems messy. I'd rather see python2 and python3 as
viable packages, and then use the virtual provide to symlink 'python'
to one of them, probably py3. So I'd vote for option 4. Python 2 and 3
aren't so different as to be called separate languages, there just
happen to be some backward-incompatible changes.

ChrisA