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Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:22:49 +0200
From: Tobias Klausmann <klausman@gentoo.org>
To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Stabilization of Python 3.1
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Hi! 

Aside from the remarks made by others (and speaking as someone
who maintains Python software), there is one reason for me to not
switch Python 3 to stable yet: lack of compatibility. Software
that runs with 3.x will not run with any 2.x version as of today
(and I doubt there will ever be a 2.x version of Python that can
run 3.x code).

As such, upstream devs will have to maintain two branches of
software for a rather long time. Thing is, some projects just
don't have the manpower to maintain two branches, so they will
stay with 2.x versions for now. Yes, it's a catch-22, but I doubt
that a sufficiently large portion of projects will have a
3.x-compatible branch/version this year (sufficient meaning
over 95%).

On the other hand, we can patch everything that doesn't run with
3.x (i.e. "fixing" the shebang lines and maybe assorted paths).
The Python team is more suited to evaluate the feasibility of
that.

Regards,
Tobias

PS: As an illustration: just look at how long it took to get a
2.6-compatible version of mailman into the tree...