Maybe I'm getting old, but: This is going extremely (too?) fast. I don't think Ubuntu LTS releases provide Python versions in time before the release chosen for the LTS becomes expired. I've definitely had an issue like this with django-channels and its required redis version.
So if I choose a few different LTSs for my server deployments, all of them dropping support so aggressively, I will end up with something out of date for a good portion of my server lifetime. For example, Ubuntu 20.04 will be supported until 2025, but it is using python 3.7 which will only be supported until 2023... So if I want to keep up-to-date, I will have to move to 22.04 as soon as it gets out. Same with any Django LTS, same with any other thingy LTS. All of that often requiring custom builds because maybe some other LTS won't be supporting the new versions yet... OTOH, the new features are so nice to use... So, maybe we don't really have to be SO strict dropping support? LP, Jure On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 9:01 AM Carlton Gibson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all. > > The Python version support policy reads [0]: "Typically, we will support a > Python version up to and including the first Django LTS release whose > security support ends after security support for that version of Python ends. > For example, Python 3.3 security support ends September 2017 and Django 1.8 > LTS security support ends April 2018. Therefore Django 1.8 is the last > version to support Python 3.3." > > Updating that to current numbers we have: > > Python EOL [1] > 3.6 2021-12-23 > 3.7 2023-06-27 > 3.8 2024-10 > 3.9 2025-10 > > Compared with the next two LTS versions for Django > > Django EOL [2] > 3.2 2024-04 > 4.2 2026-04 > > By my reckoning this makes Django 3.2 "the first Django LTS release whose > security support ends after security support for that version of Python ends" > for both Python 3.6 and Python 3.7. > > Thus on the current policy we should drop support for both Python 3.6 and > Python 3.7 when we branch Django 3.2 — i.e. for Django 4.0. > > I'm not sure what I think about that. I started writing this thinking just > about Python 3.6 — and then I looked up the dates. > > I think we should drop Python 3.6 at this time. asyncio is still evolving and > there are API changes between 3.6 and 3.7 that I think we need to get the > other side of. > > I think though that dropping support for Python 3.7 would be a little > aggressive — it will still have ≈18months of life at the point Django 4.0 is > released. > > I've argued previously for a loosening in the policy here[3]. Roughly, unless > there are technical reasons to advance, the situation I'd like is that, if > you have a (python-)supported version of Python then you can `pip install > Django` and get the latest major version. That is, roughly, the ideally, we'd > follow Python's support versions policy. (The flip side being I think we > should probably be actively dropping support for versions of Python as they > go EOL, even if between LTS versions.) > > With the change to Python's new annual release cycle[4], we're going to need > to adjust the policy somehow. Python 3.8 will be EOL for a full 2 years > before Django 4.2 is itself EOL. > > Can I ask for consideration and ideas at this stage, which hopefully can lead > to a fresh consensus? > > Thanks! > > Kind regards, > Carlton > > [0] > https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/faq/install/#what-python-version-can-i-use-with-django > [1] https://devguide.python.org/#status-of-python-branches > [2] https://www.djangoproject.com/download/#supported-versions > [3] https://groups.google.com/g/django-developers/c/YDJwI7uvgxU/m/c0ZPHaXZFQAJ > [4] https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0602/ > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/731dc68b-d3b9-4368-8efb-e77f8c3b9d89n%40googlegroups.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers (Contributions to Django itself)" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/django-developers/CAJ%3D9zieOHxefv%2BpUF%2BT2xch-N%2BWusMeeaFv%3DGzFhHY_LNw%3DfAw%40mail.gmail.com.
