[Python-Dev] PEP 594: Removing dead batteries from the standard library

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Tue, May 21, 2019 at 4:25 AM Victor Stinner <vstinner at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> Le mar. 21 mai 2019 à 13:18, André Malo <nd at perlig.de> a écrit :
> > There's software in production using both. (It doesn't mean it's on pypi or
> > even free software).
> >
> > What would be the maintenance burden of those modules anyway? (at least for
> > nntp, I guess it's not gonna change).
>
> The maintenance burden is real even if it's not visible. For example,
> test_nntplib is causing frequently issues on our CI:
>
> https://bugs.python.org/issue19756
> https://bugs.python.org/issue19613
> https://bugs.python.org/issue31850
>
> It's failing frequently since 2013, and nobody managed to come with a
> fix.. in 6 years.

If the tests don't work and the module is unmaintained, then maybe we
should disable the tests and put a prominent notice in the docs saying
that it's unmaintained and any use is at your own risk. It's not a
pleasant thing to do, but if that's the reality of the situation then
it's probably better to be up front about it than to stick our fingers
in our ears and waste folks time with spurious test failures. And
perhaps someone would actually step up to maintain it.

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org