On 10/1/2012 8:23 AM, Georg Brandl wrote:
On 10/01/2012 01:30 PM, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:
Is there a PEP with end-of-life info?
I had meant to write a PEP on security releases for several
years now. Since this still doesn't exist, here is the outline
of the procedures that maintainers have agreed upon:
- bug fix releases are made until the next feature release is
out (with 2.7 being an exception from that rule)
- security fixes are being provided until 5 years after the initial
release of the feature release
* for 2.6, this will be until Oct 1, 2013
* for 3.1, this will be until July 27, 2014
* for 3.2, this will be until Feb 20, 2016
The 5 years horizon is based on requests of system packagers
(Linux distributions in particular), who often also have 5-year
cycles for long-term support.
- security releases are made whenever maintainers deem it necessary;
the two options are
* commit fixes into source repository only, and release whenever
enough time has passed, or enough changes have accumulated, or
* release right after a security issue has been resolved
Which of these to take depends on the nature of the fix, of course.
The former is intended for system packagers of Python - they can
incorporate fixes that are official already despite not having been
released yet.
I'm not aware of a formal policy for 2.7. I guess it will end its life
by BDFL pronouncement; giving it a 5 year bug fix period (which would
end on July 3, 2015) seems a bit long to me - I'd favor to stop bug
fixing along with the 3.4 release. The last BDFL decision (that I'm
aware of) is that 2.7 should be supported "indefinitely", which is
not "infinitely".
I've now added lifespan information to the 3.2 and 3.3 release schedule
PEPs, perhaps Barry and Benjamin could do the same for 2.6 to 3.1.
Someone recently said they could not find life-cycle information on
python.org. I think it would be good to have one PEP or website page
that has the general policy, given above by Martin, the exception for
2.7, and a summary table with one line per release (back to say, 2.5),
giving number and date for
Initial release Last bug fix release Last security release
...
3.3.0 2012 Sep 30 (2014 ???) (2017 Sep)
(tentative dates in parens)
Terry
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