Objection to restoring deprecated Python subports

[Lawrence Velázquez]

Fred Wright recently opened several tickets that suggest restoring
several Python subports that were deprecated and moved to the Python
graveyard a long time ago.

https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52636
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52637
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52638
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52639
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52640
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52641
https://trac.macports.org/ticket/52642

I strenuously object to these proposals.

A few years ago, I proposed a Python subport/variant policy to reduce
project-wide support load. That policy was that we should only provide
subports for the two most recent Python versions on each of the 2.x and
3.x branches (modulo some details about termination of upstream
support).

Thanks to the efforts of many contributors, that proposal has been
mostly carried out. We absolutely should not be going backwards on this.

Users who wish to work with unsupported versions of Python should use
virtualenv to create a contained environment in which they may use the
bundled pip, setuptools, and wheel to install any modules they please.
The deprecated subports would have to be restored to the virtualenv and
setuptools ports; I'd be fine with this.

vq