[issue12795] Remove the major version from sys.platform

[Martin v. Löwis]

Martin v. Löwis <martin at v.loewis.de> added the comment:

I think this change should be much much smaller in scope. It was (nearly) agreed to drop the major version if the system is Linux. There is no consensus (that I'm aware of) to drop the major OS version for all systems.

So I would propose to do this *only* selectively, and *only* if experts of the platform request such a change. For example, hpux9, hpux10, and hpux11 are *very* different operating systems; it's not clear that users are helped if we drop the major version for them. Also, if HP-UX 12 ever gets released, it is probably again different. 

I'm not sure sure about the BSDs: it is my understanding that they follow the tradition of only adding major changes to major OS releases, which would be in favor of keeping the status quo for them. OTOH, it may also be that the impact of the major version on Python and Python applications is too small so that applications would be better helped with dropping the major version.

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue12795>
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