[Python-Dev] Compiler for the Mac OS X version of Python 3.4

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Am 18.09.13 08:43, schrieb Gregory P. Smith:
> Just drop support for 10.6 with Python 3.4. Problem solved. People on
> that old of a version of the OS can build their own Python 3.4 or do the
> right thing and upgrade or just install Linux.
> 
> This isn't Windows. Compiler tool chains are freely available for the
> legacy platform. We don't need to maintain such a long legacy support
> tail there ourselves.

I don't mind such a decision in principle, but also in principle, I'd
prefer if there was a pre-set policy to decide this question, documented
in PEP 11.

Here a piece of OSX release history:
- 10.5:       October 2007
  * 10.5.8:   August 2009
- 10.6:       August 2009
  * 10.6.8:   July 2011
- 10.7:       July 2011
  * 10.7.5:   July 2012
- 10.8:       July 2012

So possible policy that would now exclude 10.6 for binary installers
would be:

- only the two latest feature releases are supported
- only feature releases younger than 3 years are supported

Note that a separate policy should be added to decide whether support
for older versions is actively removed from source code (or equally
bug fixes for old versions are not accepted anymore).

Regards,
Martin