RFC: Remove old Python versions

[Chih-Hsuan Yen]

Fred Wright <fw at fwright.net> 於 2018年10月22日 週一 上午3:27寫道：
>
>
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2018, Chih-Hsuan Yen wrote:
>
> > I'd like to remove old Python version - python{24,25,31,32,33}. I see no
> > ports depend on python{31,32,33} and no one maintains them, but those
> > ports are still kept for while. Is there a reason for not deleting them?
>
> Some of us like to test Python code against as many versions as possible.
> It's bad enough to have to maintain locally patched versions of a few
> Python-related ports just to expand the version lists, without having the
> Python versions themselves disappear.
>

Hi,

Thanks for pointing out a valid reason for keeping old Python versions. I
know some projects still supporting as old as Python 3.2 or 2.6. Are there
examples for Python 2.5 and 3.1?

> My own philosophy is never to drop anything without a sound technical
> reason, rather than just being "too old".  If the same zeal for
> eliminating Python versions were applied to OS versions, MacPorts wouldn't
> run on anything older than 10.12.
>

Well, upgrading from old Python versions is much easier than upgrading from
old OS X versions. Due to Apple policies, new OS X versions do not work on
old machines, and buying a new machine is apparently not an option for some
people. In contrast, upgrading from Python 2.5 to 2.7 or 3.1 to 3.4+ takes
almost no cost as CPython developers keep backward compatibility as best as
they can do.

Regarding "technical reasons" - there's one: old Python version does not
build with OpenSSL 1.1, thus a blocker for upgrading the openssl port, and
I don't think backporting fixes for openssl 1.1 is feasible as hundreds of
lines should be patched.

> Checking port dependents is inadequate, since it doesn't cover
> "dependents" based on user interest.  If one were to remove all ports
> without dependents, and iterate, there would be no ports at all. :-)
>

Of course I won't even consider ports with maintainers - there's at least
one user :) I wrote this letter as those old Python versions are marked as
nomaintainer (except python24, which the maintainer confirms he no longer
needs it), so I wonder if there are still users for them.

Regards,

Chih-Hsuan Yen

> Fred Wright
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