Fortunately we can wait until we're a bit closer before we have to make any final decision on the version numbering :-)
Right now though it would be good to start communicating to users/downstreams about whatever our plans our though, so they can make plans. Here's a first attempt at some text we can put in the documentation and point people to -- any thoughts, on either the plan or the wording? ---- DRAFT TEXT - NOT FINAL - DO NOT POST THIS TO HACKERNEWS OK? OK ---- The Python core team plans to stop supporting Python 2 in 2020. The NumPy project has supported both Python 2 and Python 3 in parallel since 2010, and has found that supporting Python 2 is an increasing burden on our limited resources; thus, we plan to eventually drop Python 2 support as well. Now that we're entering the final years of community-supported Python 2, the NumPy project wants to clarify our plans, with the goal of to helping our downstream ecosystem make plans and accomplish the transition with as little disruption as possible. Our current plan is as follows: Until **December 31, 2018**, all NumPy releases will fully support both Python 2 and Python 3. Starting on **January 1, 2019**, any new feature releases will support only Python 3. The last Python-2-supporting release will be designated as a long-term support (LTS) release, meaning that we will continue to merge bug-fixes and make bug-fix releases for a longer period than usual. Specifically, it will be supported by the community until **December 31, 2019**. On **January 1, 2020** we will raise a toast to Python 2, and community support for the last Python-2-supporting release will come to an end. However, it will continue to be available on PyPI indefinitely, and if any commercial vendors wish to extend the LTS support past this point then we are open to letting them use the LTS branch in the official NumPy repository to coordinate that. If you are a NumPy user who requires ongoing Python 2 support in 2020 or later, then please contact your vendor. If you are a vendor who wishes to continue to support NumPy on Python 2 in 2020+, please get in touch; ideally we'd like you to get involved in maintaining the LTS before it actually hits end-of-life, so we can make a clean handoff. To minimize disruption, running 'pip install numpy' on Python 2 will continue to give the last working release in perpetuity; but after January 1, 2019 it may not contain the latest features, and after January 1, 2020 it may not contain the latest bug fixes. For more information on the scientific Python ecosystem's transition to Python-3-only, see: http://www.python3statement.org/ For more information on porting your code to run on Python 3, see: https://docs.python.org/3/howto/pyporting.html ---- Thoughts? -n On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 12:53 PM, Marten van Kerkwijk <m.h.vankerkw...@gmail.com> wrote: > In astropy we had a similar discussion about version numbers, and > decided to make 2.0 the LTS that still supports python 2.7 and 3.0 the > first that does not. If we're discussing jumping a major number, we > could do the same for numpy. (Admittedly, it made a bit more sense > with the numbering scheme astropy had adopted anyway.) -- Marten > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion -- Nathaniel J. Smith -- https://vorpus.org _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
