Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Require Python 3 for building QEMU

[Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>]

Eduardo Habkost <ehabkost@redhat.com> writes:

> On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 05:55:27PM +0100, Peter Maydell wrote:
>> On 15 October 2018 at 17:33, Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com> wrote:
>> > Kevin Wolf <kwolf@redhat.com> writes:
>> >
>> >> Am 15.10.2018 um 12:02 hat Peter Maydell geschrieben:
>> >> It's easier to port stuff to Python 3 though than making them work with
>> >> both. I think Eduardo's RFC is in part motivated by a patch from
>> >> Philippe that converted something in iotests to work with Python 3,
>> >> passed review and then turned out to break Python 2.
>> >
>> > Seconded.  This is not about the cost of maintaining existing
>> > compatibility gunk, it's about the extra effort to first get the
>> > remainder to work with 2 and 3, only to throw away 2 a few months later.
>> >
>> > I propose we permit ourselves to port stuff that isn't essential to
>> > building QEMU straight to 3 instead.  This includes iotests.
>> 
>> No particular objection, as long as nothing run via 'make'
>> or 'make check' needs Python 3.
>
> Sounds like a good plan for 3.1.
>
> But:
>
>> 
>> I also suspect "a few months" is an underestimate. My guess
>> would be we're going to want to keep Python 2 support for
>> at least the next year, maybe two.
>
> Python 2.7 will die in less than 15 months[1].  I really want us
> to stop reviewing and maintaining Python 2 code in QEMU in less
> than 1 year.  Preferably in less than 6 months.

Seconded.

> [1] https://pythonclock.org/

1 year, 2 months, 15 days, 17 hours, 1 minute, 36 seconds, and counting.