Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev <gentoo-dev@l.g.o>
Cc: python <python@g.o>
Subject: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Discontinuing (more-than-absolutely-minimal) Python support for non-x86 arches
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2020 18:14:10
Message-Id: 83c713fd2b241304a1cebed4e52330d4dc8edef9.camel@gentoo.org
1 Dear developers,
2
3 TL;DR: Unless arch teams decide to help us, the Python team will stop
4 supporting non-x86 arches and start dropping non-x86 keywords from
5 reverse dependencies.
6
7
8 Python team is struggling with a large number of keywordreqs
9 and stablereqs. It is common for new versions of Python packages to
10 bring new dependencies, and it is uncommon for arch teams to handle our
11 requests in time.
12
13 The situation is particularly bad on arm64 which seems to have initially
14 stabilized a lot of packages but afterwards can't manage to stabilize
15 new versions. Even with the recent effort of NeddySeagoon, it is still
16 common for me to open new stablereqs while the old ones are waiting for
17 arm64. Overall, arm64 ends up staying behind with dependencies as well
18 which makes each new stablereq more and more effort.
19
20 However, all non-x86 arches are bad. Making keywordreqs takes
21 tremendous effort, and keeping them up-to-date with frequent package
22 releases is simply impossible. It is quite frustrating when a keyword
23 request is open for a month, then some arch tester points out that
24 the package list is outdated, you spend even more effort updating it,
25 then you wait again and the same situation repeats.
26
27 In the end, we've reached the point where very high profile packages
28 such as dev-python/virtualenv are missing almost all keywords. To be
29 honest, I don't want to spend another hour trying to update package
30 list, so that *maybe* some arch team will finally consider helping us.
31
32 For this reason, I propose that the Python team officially stops
33 supporting non-x86 arches. For obvious reasons we will have to continue
34 keeping Portage and the most basic packages work but we will not put any
35 special effort to restore lost keywords, and we will drop keywords from
36 low-profile packages as their dependencies are not keyworded.
37
38 I am thoroughly frustrated by this state of affairs, and I'm having
39 a serious trouble motivating myself to do anything about it. FWICS
40 others have abandoned the ship earlier. I will probably try to prepare
41 some script to determine where we need to drop keywords, for a start.
42
43 --
44 Best regards,
45 Michał Górny

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