Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sunsetting Python 2

python.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 733 posts

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#41

Post by unionpivo »

d--b wrote: post #18

Ugh? Many systems still run COBOL today. Python 2 is likely to be around for a long time. Since the stuff is open source, wouldn't it be nicer if it was possible to fix a bug if needed? Not saying that it should be actively worked on. But maybe one person could be appointed to look over bug fix pull requests (which shouldn't be that frequent these days).

thats the worst kind of limbo, sort of supported and official but not really.

I fully support them in this. Either you support it right, or you abandon/sunset it clearly.

If someone else wants to step up and do the work, they can always do that on their own.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#42

Post by VBprogrammer »

CJefferson wrote: post #21
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.

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.

The motivation for that is probably avoiding what my first thought was; who is going to be the first to offer commercial extension of Python 2 support. That would be worth a lot of money to a lot of companies.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#43

Post by CogitoCogito »

CJefferson wrote: post #21
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.

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.

I think you're blowing it out of proportion. Call your project some other name. Say that your interpreter is compatible with Python 2 and that you provide continued support. It will probably be hard to find volunteers because most are moving/have moved to Python 3, but I don't think the threat of lawsuit will scare anyone away except those who want to infringe on PSF's trademarks and in that case...good?

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#44

Post by leowoo91 »

It's always good to see such big movements but as a truly peaceful p2 dev, I'm not even considering to upgrade my projects unless it'd cost me labor not to upgrade.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#45

Post by wongarsu »

CJefferson wrote: post #21
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.

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.

Continuing a fork under the original name would be confusing to everyone and bad manners, aside from infringing the trademark. But nobody is stopping people from organising around a fork called "Omphalos - a Python 2 fork" or whatever

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#46

Post by CogitoCogito »

d--b wrote: post #18

Ugh? Many systems still run COBOL today. Python 2 is likely to be around for a long time. Since the stuff is open source, wouldn't it be nicer if it was possible to fix a bug if needed? Not saying that it should be actively worked on. But maybe one person could be appointed to look over bug fix pull requests (which shouldn't be that frequent these days).

The PSF isn't stopping anyone from continuing support. They are only stopping people from calling it Python 2 which is 100% reasonable given that (1) that is trademarked and associated with them and (2) they don't want others' confused about their association with the projects.

By the way this is market opportunity that HN readers might consider. If you think you can make money supporting Python 2, then start working. Who knows it could be a gold mine.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#47

Post by melling »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #38
d--b wrote: post #18

Ugh? Many systems still run COBOL today. Python 2 is likely to be around for a long time. Since the stuff is open source, wouldn't it be nicer if it was possible to fix a bug if needed? Not saying that it should be actively worked on. But maybe one person could be appointed to look over bug fix pull requests (which shouldn't be that frequent these days).

As someone who works on a 99% Python 2 codebase I think this is a very necessary step. Hopefully one of our larger customers will realise we are still running their critical infrastructure on Python 2 and make enough of a fuss that we can justify the expense.

It was announced in 2014 that support was ending in 2020.

It seems a bit wrong to surprise a customer now.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#49

Post by WilliamEdward »

leowoo91 wrote: post #44

It's always good to see such big movements but as a truly peaceful p2 dev, I'm not even considering to upgrade my projects unless it'd cost me labor not to upgrade.

I mean this announcement is not a threat, it's a warning. After a certain point there is diminishing returns on not upgrading.

Re: Sunsetting Python 2

#50

Post by qilo »

IshKebab wrote: post #40
rlayton2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the stance? I haven't heard anything on that front. I'm sure there is a great market opportunity for some developers to do the migrations, or to alternative do backporting for some large companies not interested in mingrating.

I don't see how they could sure given that Python is open source. Maybe they own the Python trademark and you'd have to call it something else?

Yes, you are free to do it, no one is stopping you, but don't call it Python.
Post reply on HN