Re: the state of python 2.7

[David Holland <dholland-pkgtech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Tue, May 09, 2023 at 10:02:21AM +0100, David Brownlee wrote:
 > 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.

Not a big one; when upstream drops support and it's still needed, one
just clones the pre-update package. This has been done quite a few
times and (other than generating extra packages of perhaps dubious
value) doesn't really cost much.

 > 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)

I have old research software for which I need py27-numpy, py27-scipy,
and py27-matplotlib (and possibly one or two other lighter things) and
will continue to need them until either (a) that software itself can
be declared dead, (b) a project comes up that justifies spending time
migrating everything, or (c) problems arise where migrating is less
expensive than keeping the py27 bits going. (Or (d) somehow I
miraculously have enough time to discharge all pending technical debt
on everything everywhere. Ha.) So far (c) seems unlikely.

As long as there's at least one other pkgsrc user also wanting these
packages it makes sense to leave them in place.

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost