On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 01:30:53PM +0100, Marius Bakke wrote: > Efraim Flashner <efr...@flashner.co.il> writes: > > > We're now about a year out from the official EOL for python2 (Jan 1, > > 2020). So far we've been not adding python2 variants of packages that > > are new unless they're actually needed for something. Do we want to > > start removing python2 packages when updating other packages if they are > > leaf packages? > > I think it's okay to start removing "leaf" Python 2 packages. In most > cases they were probably never used anyway, or the dependents have > transitioned to their Python 3 counterparts. > > We'll probably break some channels, but I'm sure our users won't have > any difficulties adding them back to their own channels if need be. > > On a related note, we also have a number of [Python 3] packages that > have been failing to build for a long time. Some of these are trivial, > i.e. what "guix import" produces. > > It would be good to get rid of those as well, as the would-be user is > much better off starting from "guix import" instead of first getting > disappointed by the Guix package and then having to go through all the > trouble of submitting a patch. > > Should we have some sort of policy or threshold for when to remove such > packages? Maybe after 3-6 months?
A lot of software outside Guix still depends on Python2, for better or worse. I don't believe EOL means they are going to drop security updates. Leaf packages may well be in use today. Is there a way we mark packages as DEPRECATED? I think we should not just remove packages without a grace period. Deprecate for, say, 3 months or even 6 months is the way to do this. A deprecation tag should include a time stamp that gives the (planned) removal time. Pj.
