Python support policy

[Richard Laager]

On 9/3/20 12:39 PM, Gary E. Miller via devel wrote:
>> There may be other reasons to keep Python 2 support, but as Richard
>> says RHEL 6 will stop being one of them before our next point release
>> after this one.
> 
> And then how long for users to update?  Two years?  Three years?

The point of published lifecycles is so people can plan appropriately.
The end of security support should be the end of the migration, not the
start of it.

Now, I do understand that people get caught in bad situations for
various reasons, and I have a couple of those. But that doesn't mean it
would be reasonable for me to expect the latest software to still work
in that environment. In such cases, you freeze things in time, mitigate
security risks as best you can, and try to work you way out of the bad
situation.

> Gentoo thought that.  But they do not any more.  Just the Gentoo work so
> far has been a massive headache for Gentoo, and the TODO list is still
> very long.  Too many things, like Kodi, that still need Python 2.  Large
> amounts of critical infrastructure are still ython 2 only.

That is an argument about a different issue: whether distros/upstream
Python should stop supporting Python 2. We are talking about whether
NTPsec should continue to support Python 2. NTPsec can require Python 3
as long as all distros that NTPsec supports can install Python 3.

For example, if someone is using RHEL 7 and needs Python 2 for mission
critical code, that has no impact on NTPsec's decision. NTPsec can
require Python 3 and such a user can still use the latest NTPsec on RHEL
7, because Python 2 and Python 3 are co-installable.

-- 
Richard

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