Python Version Strategy?

[Mats Wichmann]

On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 00:35:27 -0800, Trent Mick
<trentm at ActiveState.com> wrote:


:> Redhat, and most (all?) of the linux distros seem to be slow to fully
:> upgrade and I feel like this is raining in my cornflakes.
:
:Yup. As I understand it the core Python folks don't really have any pull for
:what default Python version gets installed for the various Linux distros.

Red Hat is trying to at least /appear/ to be stabilising things for
their customers, and they won't roll key software except at major
release time.  Python is used "internally" so it qualifies on this
front. That means that the entire 7.x series continues on Python
1.5.2, and the sad news is, the next Red Hat release will be 7.3 so
figure that Red Hat will be stuck on Python 1.5.2 through the end of
this year.  You can now have a more modern version as long as you're
willing to call it python2.

The sad thing is while Red Hat is sticking to their guns on this
issue, they keep breaking other stuff for folks, making one wonder why
they bother standing on the Python issue so hard.

Most other distros do seem to have moved forward to Python 2.x. That
doesn't mean the users of those distributions have upgraded to newer
versions, however.

Mats Wichmann