Jeremy C. Reed wrote:

> The CVS log message for python21-pth/Makefile (if I paraphrase correctly)
> seems to indicate that the thread support available at that time (pth,
> Aug. 2002) core dumped some times, but some python packages need the
> threads. So I guess it means that our python normally was not built with
> threads because it was unstable.

I don't know the historical details, but it was unstable though
python*-pth seems to behave fairly well under 1.6.1 IMO.

> I don't know how stable it is on different operating systems used with
> pkgsrc.

It's very stable on Solaris and Linux and has been rock solid on
Solaris since threads were introduced to Python (don't know about
Linux).

> If it is reliable now, then the threads should just be included by default
> and the python*-pth could be removed.

Zope is one app that pushes Python threads on *bsd boxes. It's
understood to be unreliable on FreeBSD and maybe under NetBSD aside
from the stack issues under -current which normally prevent it from
being used at all. I.e. I'm not sure if there are other issues than
the stack problems with -current or not, but the instability of
Python threads as seen in Zope on FreeBSD and NetBSD is definitely
hurting both camps. The major Zope developers pretty much refuse
to deploy on either platform because of it.

This really needs to be addressed.

I don't have the skills to work through this, but I have hardware
and Zope apps that I would really like to deploy under NetBSD and
would be glad to assist in any way possible.