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

[Dirkjan Ochtman]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:12 AM, 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.
> All of the approaches have their pros and cons, but generally it is all about what user should get when he tries to install python - either nothing or python2 for now and python3 in future - and how we as a distro cope with that on the technical side (and when we should actually do the switch).
> Just as a sidenote, IMO the package that gets installed as "python" (if any) should point to /usr/bin/python, which makes consider these two points very closely coupled.

On Gentoo we get python2 and python3 executables and have user-level
tools to change what the 'python' symlink points to. I think we
default to only having Python 3 installed (and Python 3 is even made
the default Python), though it's currently always the case that Python
2 gets pulled in by some core dependencies.

Cheers,

Dirkjan