Re: the state of python 2.7

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On Wed, 3 May 2023 at 01:12, Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%bec.de@localhost> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 02, 2023 at 05:51:41PM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> > At this point, I see any open-source code that doesn't work with python
> > 3 to be effectively unmaintained.  It is thus an interesting question
> > whether pkgsrc developers should expend effort to keep it going, beyond
> > what's needed to keep open source code that is still useful despite
> > being unmaintained available to users.
>
> pkgsrc just moved from "I don't care about keeping Python 2.7 support in
> packages" to "I'm actively removing things to allow Python 2.7 to
> coexist". Being unmaintained never stopped software being in pkgsrc.

Granted, though being unmaintained and adding time and effort cost to
maintaining other packages is a reason why things get removed.

There is an unresolved conflict between wanting to keep a useful
subset of p27 packages for as long as feasible, and keeping pkgsrc up
to date with upstreams that no longer support python 2.7. All of this
is mixed in with the need to still support the diminishing set of
packages which need python 2.7 to build or deploy.

I would assume that python 2.7 and the set of packages needed to build
mongodb3 (and possibly mailman2) would be likely to remain in pkgsrc
until something changes to make that impractical, but otherwise
without an explicit direction any other py27 packages would just
whittle away.

If pkgsrc ever made it to the point that no other packages require
python2.7 then there is the judgement call as to whether to keep the
python2.7 package around (again, I would expect it to remain until
something changes to make it impractical)

For anyone wanting to use pkgsrc to maintain an existing local python
2.7 infrastructure, I think the options are likely
a) at the very least have an indication of what is a "useful subset of
py27 packages", along with a commitment to help maintaining that
subset, complete with pyversion maintenance
b) accept that pkgsrc will provide the python-2.7 base package, and
anything else may need to be provided locally
c) fork a 2020 or similar pkgsrc tag and use it to provide a python
2.7 pkgsrc tree (which while inelegant is probably significantly less
effort than a), both for them, and for anyone trying to keep pkgsrc
python packages up to date)

David