[Python-Dev] Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream

[James Y Knight]

On Mar 2, 2011, at 8:23 AM, Sandro Tosi wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 13:56, Piotr Ożarowski <piotr at debian.org> wrote:
>> [Sandro Tosi, 2011-03-02]
>>> On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 10:01, Piotr Ożarowski <piotr at debian.org> wrote:
>>>> I co-maintain with Matthias a package that provides /usr/bin/python
>>>> symlink in Debian and I can confirm that it will always point to Python
>>>> 2.X. We also do not plan to add /usr/bin/python2 symlink (and I guess
>>>> only accepted PEP can change that)
>>> 
>>> Can you please explain why you NACK this proposed change?
>> 
>> it encourages people to change /usr/bin/python symlink to point to
>> python3.X which I'm strongly against (how can I tell that upstream
>> author meant python3.X and not python2.X without checking the code?)
> 
> with 'people' do you mean 'users'? if so, isn't this risk already present?
> 
> If you, user, change the python symlink (provided by python-minimal in
> Debian) to something else than what's shipped, it's still a local
> change, and will never be supported; but with python2 *Debian is free*
> to decide if python can be pointed to python3, if the time will come.

I suspect he's saying it'd be better if the time didn't come (if so, I'd agree). Python3 *is* unfortunately a new and incompatible programming language, it makes sense for it to have it have its own interpreter name. Eventually /usr/bin/python might no longer be installed, but that doesn't mean python3 shouldn't simply be called python3 forever.

James