Re: [gentoo-user] PYTHON_TARGETS something must have changed

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Dec 8, 2019 at 9:38 AM Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> The best I can come up with, start figuring out a way to keep python 2
> around on your own, use a overlay if one is available or start expecting
> python 2 to disappear, real soon.  It seems the devs want it gone even
> before it's end of life.
>

Nobody really wants it gone per se.  It is just that nobody has
stepped up to keep it around.  Maintaining it is fairly complex, and I
suspect the people most interested in the nuts and bolts of python are
also the ones who are less interested in 2.7.  I think most who want
it to stay are more interested in it from the standpoint of keeping
other software running, but may not be interested in actually taking
care of 2.7 itself.

These sorts of situations usually cause controversy.  Sometimes
somebody cares enough to maintain the software.  Sometimes it happens
in an overlay (which allows a maintainer to be a non-dev more easily,
and it also eliminates most QA requirements so that can ease the
burden of maintenance, though with the caveat that those QA standards
exist for a reason so there are downsides).

In the past when stuff like this has happened the software has
generally ended up being taken out of the tree, because the fact is
that stuff like this can break pretty quickly if nobody is fixing
bugs, and if nobody wants to maintain it then that will be what
happens.  But, it is entirely possible that somebody will step up to
maintain it.

Python is a bit messier than some previous cases like this because of
the whole way that PYTHON_TARGETS and such work, and the complexity of
the dependency graph.  And keep in mind that the upstream announced
EOL is less than a month off.  Not that this means the code instantly
stops working, but that is why we're starting to see masks and such
and more discussion/planning.

-- 
Rich