Fred Wright <[email protected]> 於 2018年10月22日 週一 上午3:27寫道： > > > On Sun, 21 Oct 2018, Chih-Hsuan Yen wrote: > > > I'd like to remove old Python version - python{24,25,31,32,33}. I see no > > ports depend on python{31,32,33} and no one maintains them, but those > > ports are still kept for while. Is there a reason for not deleting them? > > Some of us like to test Python code against as many versions as possible. > It's bad enough to have to maintain locally patched versions of a few > Python-related ports just to expand the version lists, without having the > Python versions themselves disappear. >
Hi, Thanks for pointing out a valid reason for keeping old Python versions. I know some projects still supporting as old as Python 3.2 or 2.6. Are there examples for Python 2.5 and 3.1? > My own philosophy is never to drop anything without a sound technical > reason, rather than just being "too old". If the same zeal for > eliminating Python versions were applied to OS versions, MacPorts wouldn't > run on anything older than 10.12. > Well, upgrading from old Python versions is much easier than upgrading from old OS X versions. Due to Apple policies, new OS X versions do not work on old machines, and buying a new machine is apparently not an option for some people. In contrast, upgrading from Python 2.5 to 2.7 or 3.1 to 3.4+ takes almost no cost as CPython developers keep backward compatibility as best as they can do. Regarding "technical reasons" - there's one: old Python version does not build with OpenSSL 1.1, thus a blocker for upgrading the openssl port, and I don't think backporting fixes for openssl 1.1 is feasible as hundreds of lines should be patched. > Checking port dependents is inadequate, since it doesn't cover > "dependents" based on user interest. If one were to remove all ports > without dependents, and iterate, there would be no ports at all. :-) > Of course I won't even consider ports with maintainers - there's at least one user :) I wrote this letter as those old Python versions are marked as nomaintainer (except python24, which the maintainer confirms he no longer needs it), so I wonder if there are still users for them. Regards, Chih-Hsuan Yen > Fred Wright
