Retiring Python 2.4 and 2.5

[Ned Deily]

In article <987E50BD-3EB4-4FE3-BF08-29C3F7916E0A at macports.org>,
 Lawrence Velazquez <larryv at macports.org> 
 wrote:
> On Sep 16, 2014, at 1:30 AM, Clemens Lang 
> <cal at macports.org> wrote:
> > If I were you, I'd set a timeout and if nobody argues that we should keep 
> > them
> > for a good reason, delete them once the timeout has passed. Probably ask 
> > -users,
> > too.
> I like this.
> > While we're at it, isn't 2.6 unsupported as well?
> 
> Yes, and so are 3.1 through 3.3. Frankly, I'd fully support replacing all of 
> them with python2 @2.7.8 and python3 @3.4.1 (which would also make it easy to 
> comply with PEP 394*), but that might be a wee bit radical for some.

FWIW as an outside (and upstream) observer, I strongly endorse removing 
Python 2.4 and 2.5.  It's doing no one any service to attempt to keep 
them running on the latest OS X releases when they have been retired 
upstream and it just creates extra work for all of you.  The last 
maintenance release of 2.4.x was in 2006. 2.5.6 (in 2011) and 2.6.9 (in 
2013) were the final security-critical updates for those branches.  They 
are all now "retired" upstream, meaning no new upstream fixes of any 
kind.  Python 3.1.x, as of 6/2014, is also now "retired".  Under current 
policy, Python 3.2.x will continue to receive any security-critical 
fixes until 2/2016.  So I would also strongly endorse removing 3.1, not 
just because it is retired but Python 3 was still very much a 
work-in-progress as of 3.1; I find it hard to imagine that anyone is 
using 3.1.  One could probably make a *slightly* stronger case for 
keeping 3.2 but I don't think it would be a loss to remove it as well, 
considering 3.3.x is already in security-critical fix mode.

Incidentally, for the foreseeable future, active bug-fix branches of 
upstream Python (currently 3.4.x and 2.7.x) will continue to be tested 
and supported (as best as practical) on OS X releases back to 10.4.

Thanks again to all of you who do such a great job supporting the Python 
ecosphere!

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org