Re: Sphinx pre v3 -- removing support

From: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
To: Adam Turner <aaturnerpython@outlook.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Sphinx pre v3 -- removing support
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2022 00:05:02 +0900	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <52a6ffc3-300f-289e-b523-bc1ea93459d1@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <LO3P123MB26810D190462B6BBBF1305F6C2A19@LO3P123MB2681.GBRP123.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>

Hi Adam,

Please find a couple of inline questions below from a casual user of
Sphinx via kernel documentation build tools.

On Fri, 3 Jun 2022 14:13:27 +0000,
Adam Turner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was pointed in the direction of this mailing list by Jani Nikula in
> [1]_, who said:
> 
>> Thanks for the ping. I was heavily involved in the early days of
>> converting the kernel to use Sphinx, but I haven't closely followed
>> the recent developments. Basically I think I'd also be inclined to
>> push for much higher minimum Sphinx version requirements than what
>> the kernel currently has. The minimum at the moment is v1.7.9 
>> (or v2.4.4 for PDF). It's difficult to maintain support for a wide
>> range of Sphinx versions. Perhaps the best bet would be to mail the
>> kernel documentation list at linux-doc@vger.kernel.org and Cc 
>> Jonathan Corbet corbet@lwn.net to try to reach an understanding on
>> the recommended minimum version and version ranges that makes sense
>> for both parties to support. HTH.
> 
> This email is an attempt to do that. 
> 
> From Sphinx's perspective, we'd like to remove long-deprecated code.
> What is a good solution here for both sides? The intertial option is
> for us to delay the deprecation by another major version (removal is
> currently scheduled for Sphinx 6 (2023-05), and we are currently 
> releasing a major version every May.

So, can we assume that there won't be any backward-incompatible
behavior changes in Sphinx due to the removal of those long-deprecated
code?

Or do you mean that after the release of Sphinx 6, pre v3 Sphinx
will be removed in the PyPI repository?

These questions might be too obvious for you but I have no idea what
you mean by "removing support".

       Thanks, Akira

> 
> Jani reports that you still require Sphinx 1.7.9 -- I have no 
> investment in the documentation development of the kernel, but he
> rightly notes that is quite an old version -- released 3 years and 9
> months ago.
> 
> Please would you let me know if there is anything required on our
> (Sphinx's) end that would let us drop the "pre v3" support gracefully.
> 
> A
> 
> Thanks,
> Adam
> 
> _[1]: https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/pull/10471#discussion_r888962744
> 