Re: Question about support dates

['Adam Johnson' via Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)]

As the maintainer of several Django-related packages and a contributor to many 
more, I see the policy as fair. Most maintainers have little capacity, and 
anything to reduce that burden is welcome.

Third-party packages typically test with a matrix of Python versions against 
Django versions. Letting that grow large makes writing code harder, testing 
slow, and wastes CI computing power and energy.

Users using Django 3.2 can still install and use old versions of third-party 
packages. Aside from data loss bugs or security issues, third-party packages 
dropping support for 3.2 to 4.1 will probably have little effect on such 
projects.

> Secondly, it would help me if end dates of both mainstream and extended 
> support were set to specific dates. This hold true for all end dates in the 
> release schedule on https://www.djangoproject.com/download/ .
> For example, the end date of extended for Django 5.1 ends either in December 
> 2025 or per 1st of January 2026, which is not clear to me. I believe this 
> difference to be relevant for organizations scheduling updates.

Django versions make one release per month (if there are any changes). This is 
typically the first Monday but depends on fellow availability and the state of 
any pull requests. That’s why there’s no date commitment. After any initial 
bugfix release date in the final month of release, it’s unlikely that any 
further drastic bugs will be discovered and backported to the branch.

Also, I have never encountered a Django project that upgrades within or near 
the final month of support. There are two camps: those who upgrade proactively 
(either to each release or LTS), and those who don’t (often found running a 
ten-year-old Django with custom backports). I doubt that a more concrete date 
would help with scheduling updates. If it helps get resources, assume the first 
of the month, or better yet push for margin and aim to upgrade 6 months before 
EOL.

On Wed, Oct 25, 2023, at 8:45 AM, Wim Feijen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The release notes of Django 5.0 state:
> "Third-party library support for older version of Django¶
> 
> Following the release of Django 5.0, we suggest that third-party app authors 
> drop support for all versions of Django prior to 4.2. At that time, you 
> should be able to run your package’s tests using python -Wd so that 
> deprecation warnings appear. After making the deprecation warning fixes, your 
> app should be compatible with Django 5.0."
> 
> However, Django 3.2 is supported until April 2024. Would it not be 
> recommendable for third-party packages to support Django 3.2 as well?
> 
> My proprosal is to remove the above warning entirely from the release notes, 
> or to change the first line to "From April 2024 on, we suggest that ..."
> 
> Secondly, it would help me if end dates of both mainstream and extended 
> support were set to specific dates. This hold true for all end dates in the 
> release schedule on https://www.djangoproject.com/download/ .
> For example, the end date of extended for Django 5.1 ends either in December 
> 2025 or per 1st of January 2026, which is not clear to me. I believe this 
> difference to be relevant for organizations scheduling updates.
> 
> Thanks for considering this, and for the awesome work on making Django better 
> and better!
> 
> Warm regards,
> Wim
> 
> 
> 
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Question about support dates

[Wim Feijen]

Hi,

The release notes of Django 5.0 state:
"Third-party library support for older version of Django¶

Following the release of Django 5.0, we suggest that third-party app 
authors drop support for all versions of Django prior to 4.2. At that time, 
you should be able to run your package’s tests using python -Wd so that 
deprecation warnings appear. After making the deprecation warning fixes, 
your app should be compatible with Django 5.0."

However, Django 3.2 is supported until April 2024. Would it not be 
recommendable for third-party packages to support Django 3.2 as well? 

My proprosal is to remove the above warning entirely from the release 
notes, or to change the first line to "From April 2024 on, we suggest that 
..."

Secondly, it would help me if end dates of both mainstream and extended 
support were set to specific dates. This hold true for all end dates in the 
release schedule on https://www.djangoproject.com/download/ . 
For example, the end date of extended for Django 5.1 ends either in 
December 2025 or per 1st of January 2026, which is not clear to me. I 
believe this difference to be relevant for organizations scheduling updates.

Thanks for considering this, and for the awesome work on making Django 
better and better!

Warm regards,
Wim

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