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Developers and users, |
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|
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On behalf of Python team, I would like to announce that we are planning |
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on starting the process of removing Python 2.6. The process will start |
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with masking the python2_6 target USE flags and relevant packages. If |
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nobody strongly disagrees with this, we will commit the masks one week |
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from now, on 2014-04-28. |
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|
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Afterwards, Python 2.7 (with experimental support for PyPy and Jython |
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2.7) will be the only version of Python 2 supported in Gentoo. Python |
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2.7 is mostly backwards compatible with 2.6 and all of the packages |
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in Gentoo supporting Python 2.6 support 2.7 as well. Therefore, |
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switching to 2.7 should be painless to most of our users. |
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|
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If you have any doubts about this change, please do not hesitate to |
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reply to this mail, to the gentoo-dev@ mailing list. In case you have |
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more general migration problems, you can contact us through |
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the gentoo-python mailing list [1] or #gentoo-python IRC channel |
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on Freenode [2]. |
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|
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|
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Rationale: |
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|
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The last version of Python 2.6 was released on 2013-10-29 and was |
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announced as the last official release [3]. Therefore, Python 2.6 |
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is no longer maintained upstream and security fixes are no longer |
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provided. |
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|
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Moreover, a growing number of Python projects are removing support |
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for Python 2.6. If their reverse dependencies are still installed with |
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Python 2.6 support, this prevents the package manager from upgrading |
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them and leaves users with outdated, potentially vulnerable versions. |
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|
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[1]:http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml |
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[2]:http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/irc.xml |
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[3]:https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.9/ |
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|
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-- |
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Best regards, |
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Michał Górny |