[Twisted-Python] A Proposal for reducing the burden of developing on Twisted by dropping Python 2 support

[Tom Most]

This also works for me and at $EMPLOYER. We expect the same or similar to happen in many more parts of the Python ecosystem.

-- 
  Tom Most
  twm at freecog.net

On Mon, Mar 25, 2019, at 3:15 AM, Amber Brown wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Since the Python 2 EOL date is rapidly approaching, I thought it was 
> time we consider dropping Python 2 support.
> 
> I personally find that Python 2 compat adds a huge amount of overhead 
> when working on and maintaining Twisted, and think that with the current 
> maintainer availability, dropping it sooner rather than later would have 
> a beneficial effect on how much work we spend on shims/compat, 
> complexity, and our ability to ship new features, as well as onboarding 
> people who are interested in the project, but have no interest (or 
> experience!) in Python 2.7.
> 
> It is basically summed up by doing a feature freeze on an agreed-upon 
> version of Twisted, that will be the last version released for 2.7. It 
> would be abnormal in that it would get security fixes (our current 
> policy is to only release them for current versions) and critical 
> bugfixes, but would otherwise be frozen.
> 
> One of my rationales is that from some analysis of PyPI download 
> statistics, the vast majority of Python 2 users are using old versions 
> of Twisted, while nearly all our Python 3 users are on the latest 
> version. As such, I believe freezing a version that will get security 
> updates but no new features would not be a massive loss to those stuck 
> on Python 2 for whatever reason.
> 
> Twisted's compatibility policy would still apply, ensuring that Python 
> 2/3 compatible software using Twisted would be able to use the older 
> Twisted version on Python 2, and the newer version on Python 3, as you 
> would usually expect.
> 
> You can find the proposal here, in this handy-dandy Google Doc: 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S4CGgZC09blLIdk3Zo7wBa75A9_JuuH_3akkyjN0lik/edit
> 
> Comments are welcome, as well as which timeline seems reasonable.
> 
> - Amber
> 
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