[Python-ideas] Create Python 2.8 as a transition step to Python 3.x

[Ben Finney]

Matěj Cepl <mcepl at redhat.com> writes:

> On 2014-01-19, 03:58 GMT, you wrote:
> > But that doesn't stop other parties – Red Hat, ActiveState, 
> > etc. – doing so for whatever customers are still interested in 
> > compensating them for their work.
>
> a) necessary disclaimer: I AM not speaking for my employer, just 
> words out of my ass.
> b) The point which is overlooked here, that people promoting 
> python 2.8 are not speaking for STABILITY in the sense RHEL is 
> stable. They want further DEVELOPMENT and CHANGES of Python to 
> improve and react to the changed circumstances.

I'm not overlooking that, I'm pointing out that Python is free software,
so *the option is there*, for those who want Python 2 maintained
indefinitely, to motivate and compensate some party to do it.

Python 2 is free software, so any capable party can fulfil the developer
and maintainer role without any further permission required. The PSF has
made it clear they will not be that party past a certain point; but
Python 2 is licensed freely from the PSF to all recipients, so the PSF's
decision not to maintain Python 2 in no way prevents anyone else doing
so.

So, what “people promoting the continuance of Python 2” are asking for
is entirely within their power to have, if they want it enough. Will
they do it? That's up to them; no-one is stopping them.

> That is not, as far as I understand it, the business Red Hat is in.[…]
> So, I don't see us as rooting for the further development of Python
> 2.* API.

And that's an entirely reasonable decision for Red Hat to make. My point
is that *nothing the PSF is doing prevents* such a party from choosing
to do so.

In other words, those who want Python 2 to continue need to either bite
the bullet and move their migration to Python 3 forward, or get
themselves organised and come up with an entity which will maintain
Python 2 for as long as they want it maintained.

It's no-one else's responsibility, and no-one else is stopping them. Put
up or shut up, folks!

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Ben Finney