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Sunsetting Python 2

python.org

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Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#21

Post by CJefferson »

mrweasel wrote: post #5
coldtea wrote: post #3

> If people find catastrophic security problems in Python 2, or in software written in Python 2, then volunteers will not help you. If you need help with Python 2 software, then volunteers will not help you. Well, isn't it the benefit of FOSS, that volunteers can, and in the case of such a critical piece, so much used as Python 2, in all probability will, step up. Doesn't have to be the same people as the core team i…

I honestly don't believe that many will step up and take over. Many will complain, but few will do the actual work. Even if it's just security fixes, there's still the process of testing and release management, and honestly, I don't blame the core Python team for no longer wanting to do release management of both Python 2 and 3.

The biggest problem is having a place to organise.

The Python foundation is threatening to sue anyone continuing something called Python 2, or even a similar name.

Finding volunteers who are willing to get sued to work on Python will be hard.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#22

Post by melling »

tobr wrote: post #20

I don't have a stake in this and don't know much about the background, so pardon if this comment is out of touch. Is this the first notice of this date? January 1 is just 16 weeks away, which seems like an awfully short notice for ending security updates of a very popular language. EDIT: I see now that they mention that 2020 has been the plan since 2014, which seems reasonable.

Nah, we got a 5 year extension about 5 years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7581434

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7372913

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#23

Post by lozenge »

Animats wrote: post #7

Some shared hosting providers are still offering Python 2.6 as their main offering.[1] Optionally, there's Python 3.2, probably the worst 3.x version. [1] https://www.hostgator.com/help/article/what-software-and-pro...

As they are on CentOS 6 it would be impractical to switch to another version as default as Python is used by the system, however they do have 2.7 installed.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#24

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #3

> If people find catastrophic security problems in Python 2, or in software written in Python 2, then volunteers will not help you. If you need help with Python 2 software, then volunteers will not help you. Well, isn't it the benefit of FOSS, that volunteers can, and in the case of such a critical piece, so much used as Python 2, in all probability will, step up. Doesn't have to be the same people as the core team i…

[deleted]

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#26

Post by em500 »

mrweasel wrote: post #5
coldtea wrote: post #3

> If people find catastrophic security problems in Python 2, or in software written in Python 2, then volunteers will not help you. If you need help with Python 2 software, then volunteers will not help you. Well, isn't it the benefit of FOSS, that volunteers can, and in the case of such a critical piece, so much used as Python 2, in all probability will, step up. Doesn't have to be the same people as the core team i…

I honestly don't believe that many will step up and take over. Many will complain, but few will do the actual work. Even if it's just security fixes, there's still the process of testing and release management, and honestly, I don't blame the core Python team for no longer wanting to do release management of both Python 2 and 3.

RHEL 7 depends on python 2.7 and will have security/maintenance support till June 2024. So for security updates, I guess we can just track RHEL7/CentOS7 python 2.7.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#27

Post by lozenge »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #9
mrweasel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't believe that many will step up and take over. Many will complain, but few will do the actual work. Even if it's just security fixes, there's still the process of testing and release management, and honestly, I don't blame the core Python team for no longer wanting to do release management of both Python 2 and 3.

I'm no Python insider, but Google has quite a lot of projects based on Python 2, including build scripts for recently released software, so I'm guessing they could at some point maintain their own Python 2 branch (which, again, I'm guessing is much less work than porting a huge amount of script code over to 3 for no material benefit).

They already have one - look in their type checker repo for patches that add certain Python 3 features (type annotations) to Python 2.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#28

Post by raverbashing »

tobr wrote: post #20

I don't have a stake in this and don't know much about the background, so pardon if this comment is out of touch. Is this the first notice of this date? January 1 is just 16 weeks away, which seems like an awfully short notice for ending security updates of a very popular language. EDIT: I see now that they mention that 2020 has been the plan since 2014, which seems reasonable.

If you read the article it was explained there, but tl;dr: it was announced in 2014 (that support would end in Jan 1st 2020)

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#29

Post by em500 »

antoinealb wrote: post #10
coldtea wrote: post #3

> If people find catastrophic security problems in Python 2, or in software written in Python 2, then volunteers will not help you. If you need help with Python 2 software, then volunteers will not help you. Well, isn't it the benefit of FOSS, that volunteers can, and in the case of such a critical piece, so much used as Python 2, in all probability will, step up. Doesn't have to be the same people as the core team i…

> Not to mention paid FOSS developers at places like RedHat, who want to keep supporting their LTS and enterprise customers... Well RedHat annouced a long time ago that RHEL 8 will drop support for Python 2 [0], so at least it appears they also want to leave Python 2 behind. RHEL7 is already receiving security fixes only [1], which doesn't look like a huge "support" effort to me. Especially, behavior bugs and ports o…

> RHEL7 is already receiving security fixes only [1], which doesn't look like a huge "support" effort to me.

Nobody expects new features in python 2.7, so this is basically all the support that people are looking for. RHEL7 will have security maintenance till Jun 2024.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#30

Post by rlayton2 »

kuu wrote: post #19

I don't think the main problem is to change the version of Python, but the version of all the related libraries, which many of them depend on 2.7 version. I know many of the big ones are already on 3.x for a long time, but I wonder how long will it take to replace and upgrade all the small ones if it did not happen already... BTW I don't know how necessary was to break compatibility between 2.7 and 3, the pain of thi…

Any major library that hasn't moved to Python 3 by now isn't going to on their own accord. Either that means they won't, or that the sunsetting will kick them into gear (or get their users to kick them into gear).

It should be pointed out that Python 2 will continue to be used, and be usable. It just won't get new security upgrades or features. I do not know, but I doubt if there will be a feature or security flaw come up soon that "forces" existing python 2-only libraries to update

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