Re: [PATCH 4/4] Update README to state Python3 requirement

From: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
To: George Dunlap <george.dunlap@cloud.com>
Cc: "Marek Marczykowski-Górecki" <marmarek@invisiblethingslab.com>,
	"Andrew Cooper" <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>,
	"George Dunlap" <george.dunlap@citrix.com>,
	"Julien Grall" <julien@xen.org>,
	"Stefano Stabellini" <sstabellini@kernel.org>,
	"Wei Liu" <wl@xen.org>,
	xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4] Update README to state Python3 requirement
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2023 15:54:12 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8e4a7b1f-cad2-e2bb-bc91-00a208bcfe94@suse.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CA+zSX=bHyn-v77shA9xGaacjXcQ0U0tTg2V0U2t0FVML7WFJqw@mail.gmail.com>

On 17.03.2023 13:37, George Dunlap wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 8:46 AM Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 16.03.2023 18:16, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
>>> Python2 is not supported anymore.
>>
>> There are two things here which concern me: For one, how come this is
>> at the end of a series? You want to keep in mind that any series may
>> be committed piecemeal (unless an indication to the contrary is in
>> the cover letter, but there's none here in the first place).
>>
>> The other aspect is that there's no indication here of it being
>> consensus that we raise the baseline requirement for Python, and for
>> Python alone. A decision towards the wider topic of raising baseline
>> requirements is, as you may recall from the meeting in Cambridge,
>> still pending.
>>
> 
> To me, the idea behind that discussion was that if we agree on a policy --
> or at least general principles -- then we can avoid having to have
> discussions on a case-by-case basis.  The fact that the discussion is still
> open isn't a reason not to deprecate features; it just means that we still
> need to discuss each one on its merits.
> 
> Given that Python 2 was announced unsupported years ago now, it seems
> obvious to me that we should stop trying to support it.
> 
> Are you arguing that we *should* continue to support Python2?  Do you think
> anyone will?

I think we really need basics of a policy first. Otherwise what can or
cannot be proposed to no longer be supported is just too arbitrary. Here
as well as elsewhere my fear is that thing would stop building on rather
old distros, where so far things have been building fine. (For Py3 in
particular that's no _that_ much of a concern, because quite some time
ago qemu already started requiring it. But it would still be a change in
how I would need to invoke builds on such old systems that I try Xen out
on every once in a while, because I'd then need to override the Python
to use not just for qemu, but globally.)

Jan