Hi Rob,
thanks for your patch. CPython core developers, as volunteers, have limited 
resources available to maintain Python. Those resources are not only time, they 
are also mental resources necessary to make a change in Python as well as 
actual physical resources. Supporting a platform requires all three:

1. You need time to make a platform work initially, and then continuous effort 
to keep it working, fixing regressions, including this platform in new 
features, etc.
2. You need mental resources to manage additional complexity that comes from 
#ifdef sprinkled through the code, cryptic configure/Makefile machinery, etc.
3. You need access to machines running the given operating system to be able to 
test if your changes are compatible.

This is why we are keeping the list of supported platforms relatively short. In 
fact, in time we're cutting support for less popular platforms that we couldn't 
keep running. Details in https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0011/ 
<https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0011/>. Look, just in 3.7 we're dropping 
IRIX and systems without threads.

As you're saying, while your current PR is relatively innocent, more are needed 
to make it work. If those require more drastic changes in our codebase, we 
won't be able to accept them due to reasons stated above.

I understand where you're coming from. If you're serious about this, we would 
need to see the full extent of changes required to make Python 3.7 work on HP 
UX, preferably minimal. We would also need a buildbot added to our fleet (see 
http://buildbot.python.org/ <http://buildbot.python.org/>) that would ensure 
the build stays green. Finally, we would need you to think whether you could 
provide the patches that keep the build green for a significant period of time 
(counted in years).

- Ł



> On Dec 6, 2017, at 7:22 AM, Rob Boehne <r...@datalogics.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Back in June I was fired up to get my diverse set of platforms all running 
> Python 3, but quickly ran into issues and submitted a PR.
> 
> https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/2519 
> <https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/2519>
> 
> It seems as though this HP-UX specific change isn’t getting much 
> consideration, which probably isn’t a big deal.  What may be more important 
> is that I’ve stopped trying to contribute, and if I really need Python 3 on 
> HP-UX, AIX, Sparc Solaris or other operating systems, I’ll have to hack it 
> together myself and maintain  my own fork, while presumably others do the 
> same.  At the same time I’m working hard to convince management that we 
> shouldn’t create technical debt by maintaining patches to all the tools we 
> use, and that we should get these changes accepted into the upstream repos.
> 
> Could someone have a look at this PR and possibly merge?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Rob Boehne
> 
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