what are we doing about old python, really?

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

I have been rototilling pyversion.mk comments, to try to get to the
point where I understand it and I think it describes what we are doing.

There's a point where I think people may disagree and this is an attempt
to find consensus, or at least be clear about the disagreement.

I'm leaving out 2.7 because I think ~everybody wishes it were gone, but
we have a bit of 2.7 left for various reasons, and this is pretty
stable.

Consider a python package with no python dependencies.  Assume it can
build with 310, 311, 312, 313.  How should it be marked?  Options are:

  1) PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED= 310 311 312 313, because that's how it is

  2) No marking, because it works with the value of default value of
  PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED, and we do not allow adding 310 because it
  will just cause pbulk grief.

Consider a python package with no python dependencies.  Assume it can
build with 310, 311, 312.  How should it be marked?  Options are:

  1) PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED= 310 311 312, because that's how it is.

  2) PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED= 311 312, because that's the set  of
  respectable versions it works with.

Consider a no-dep package that supports 39 310.  Options are:

  1) PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED= 39 310

  2) ???



My question comes down to: Is it ever acceptable to put 310 in
PYTHON_VERSIONS_ACCEPTED, and if so under what circumstances.

Note that I'm insisting on our documentation leading to a correct
answer.


If you don't vote for option 1 in the first two questions, and you think
we should keep python310, please explain why and how people should use
it.