Making code 2.1 compatible

[Tim Peters]

> | Laura Creighton wrote the FAQ:
> |
> |     http://pbf.nuxeo.org/faq.html

[Donn Cave]
> Thanks.  That does get fairly specific, 18 month release cycle
> and limited new features.  I infer from the language that they
> understand that the new features part has potential problems.

If they don't, we do <wink> -- the volunteer bugfix-release Patch Czars so
far have taken a strong "no new features!" stance.  Indeed, some members of
the PBF seem less anal about that than the Czars have been (beyond that it's
not always simple to distinguish bugfix from feature).

...
> | What's to clarify?  The 2.2 line is the most stable Python there is.
> | They're business people, not Luddites <wink>.
>
> Matter of perspective.  I would probably have picked 2.2 if it
> had been left to me, just because it's current.  But when I've
> proposed it in the past I've suggested the recently out-of-current
> release, because that makes it immediately an issue.

Toward what end?  They're business people, not Crusaders <wink>.

> Either way, not on the basis of any technical properties of the
> releases in question.  I don't even know what "stable" means, rather
> ambiguous if you ask me.

People fielding bug reports have a good handle on relative stability, and in
the cross-platform real-life senses the PBF is concerned about.  The PBF
build-and-test farm can only make that better.