[gentoo-dev] Urgent reminder to port your packages to Python 3.8 and Python 3.9

[Sam James]

Hi,

We still have ~31 packages still not declaring support for newer Python 3 targets than Python 3.7,
we have ~1085 packages still not declaring support for newer Python 3 targets than Python 3.8 (i.e.
Python 3.9).

Please review this list to see if your packages are stuck on Python 3.7:
http://qa-reports.gentoo.org/output/gpyutils/37-to-38.txt

Please review this list to see if your packages are stuck on Python 3.8:
http://qa-reports.gentoo.org/output/gpyutils/38-to-39.txt

This list contains maintainer names, so it’s easy to tell if you need to act.

The default Python target in profiles was switched from Python 3.7 to Python 3.8
at the beginning of December. A news item still needs to be created [0].

Your package not supporting the latest targets makes it harder for other packages
to do so. In particular, packages not supporting even the default target (now Python 3.8)
means that users have a difficult time installing it.

Previous warnings have been sent about this including in November [1]. mgorny sent
this [2] RFC regarding an impeding switch of the default to Python 3.9 too.

TL;DR:
* Please port your packages to Python 3.8 (already default) and Python 3.9 ASAP.
* Packages supporting Python 3 but not newer versions may be last-rited.

[0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/771165
[1] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/f1e452d0a54d5347d9f867478b2604c4
[2] https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/ba2fc4854ed6bb49813819ae6f5e9552