Should non-security 2.7 bugs be fixed?

[Rustom Mody]

On Sunday, July 19, 2015 at 8:04:20 AM UTC+5:30, Devin Jeanpierre wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 6:34 PM, Terry Reedy  wrote:
> > On 7/18/2015 8:27 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
> >> On 19/07/2015 00:36, Terry Reedy wrote:
> >> Programmers don't much like doing maintainance work when they're paid to
> >> do it, so why would they volunteer to do it?
> >
> > Right.  So I am asking: if a 3.x user volunteers a 3.x patch and a 3.x core
> > developer reviews and edits the patch until it is ready to commit, why
> > should either of them volunteer to do a 2.7 backport that they will not use?
> 
> Because it helps even more people. The reason people make upstream
> contributions is so that the world benefits. If you only wanted to
> help yourself, you'd just patch CPython locally, and not bother
> contributing anything upstream.
> 
> > I am suggesting that if there are 10x as many 2.7only programmers as 3.xonly
> > programmers, and none of the 2.7 programmers is willing to do the backport
> > *of an already accepted patch*, then maybe it should not be done at all.
> 
> That just isn't true. I have backported 3.x patches. Other people have
> backported entire modules.
> 
> It gets really boring submitting 2.7-specific patches, though, when
> they aren't accepted, and the committers have such a hostile attitude
> towards it. I was told by core devs that, instead of fixing bugs in
> Python 2, I should just rewrite my app in Python 3. It has even been
> implied that bugs in Python 2 are *good*, because that might help with
> Python 3 adoption.
> 
> >> Then even if you do the
> >> work to fix *ANY* bug there is no guarantee that it gets committed.
> >
> > I am discussing the situation where there *is* a near guarantee (if the
> > backport works and does not break anything and has not been so heavily
> > revised as to require a separate review).
> 
> That is not how I have experienced contribution to CPython. No, the
> patches are *not* guaranteed, and in my experience they are not likely
> to be accepted.
> 
> If the issue was closed as fixed before I contributed the backported
> patch, does anyone even see it?

Not to mention actively hostile attitude to discussions that could at the 
moment be tangential to current CPython. See (and whole thread)
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2015-May/033708.html

JFTR: My kids (um... students) have just managed to add devanagari numerals to 
python.
ie we can now do

>>> १ + २
3

[The devanagari equivalent of "12334567890" is "१२३४५६७८९०"
And also for those who may not be familiar, devanagari is the script for
sanskrit, hindi and a slew of (north) Indian languages
]

Regarding this as a fork of python is technically (legalistically) correct but
pragmatically ridiculous [unless my students spell as 'Linus Torvalds' or somethin...].

Note that while I dont regard that specific answer as representative of the
python-community at large, it is also true that a little help -- even brusque
RTFM answers¹ -- would have seen us farther than "If this is what you are up to, get out of here"

tl;dr: Not so much a complaint but a indicator that people who could 
potentially contribute are being prevented from entering

------
¹ For me, RTFM is always welcome if accompanied by which FM