RFC: Remove old Python versions

[Chih-Hsuan Yen]

Chih-Hsuan Yen <yan12125 at gmail.com> 於 2018年10月24日 週三 上午11:12寫道：
>
>
> 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

I removed Python 2.5 and Python 3.1 in
https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/160f340665b9d97c1065fcb2aecb5b504a7b3cb4.
Python 3.2 and 3.3 are kept for now until most Python libraries drop
support for them. See https://hugovk.github.io/drop-python/ for
statistical data.

Cheers,

Chih-Hsuan Yen