PEP Parade

[Tim Peters]

[Donn Cave]
> ...
> If there are lots of people using 2.1.2 and it has a serious bug, then
> I'm sure someone will come up with a fix sooner or later,

Like there were many serious bugs in 1.5.2, and sooner or later they did get
fixed.  However, because nobody volunteered to produce a bugfix release for
1.5.2 (and despite that Guido started asking for volunteers about 6 months
after 1.5.2 was released -- no response), none of those fixes do 1.5.2 users
any good.  The only advice they get when they hit a 1.5.2 bug is "so
upgrade -- or pay someone for the pain of investigation and backporting".

If you're serious about holding on to 2.1, talk someone into starting work
on 2.1.3 now.  It will already be more difficult for them than it would have
been had they started to produce 2.1.3 right after 2.1.2 was released.  Let
a few more months pass, and the odds of another 2.1 bugfix release will be
down with the odds of a new 1.5.2 bugfix release.

If you're picturing individual patches for only those bugs you consider
"serious", the distribution, integration, and support problems will kill
that in practice.  That is, very few will agree to hunt down and apply
random patches to an unsupported product, and those who do will eventually
hit bugs unique to the specific combination of patches they applied.
Keeping the 2.1.x series alive is a real solution to all that too.

reality-check-ly y'rs  - tim