[Python-Dev] Official version support statement (original) (raw)

Tony Nelson tonynelson at georgeanelson.com
Sat May 12 03:38:27 CEST 2007

At 12:58 AM +0200 5/12/07, Martin v. Löwis wrote:

"The Python Software Foundation officially supports the current stable major release of Python. By "supports" we mean that the PSF will produce bug fix releases of this version, currently Python 2.5. We may release patches for earlier versions if necessary, such as to fix security problems, but we generally do not make releases of such unsupported versions. Patch releases of earlier Python versions may be made available through third parties, including OS vendors." If such an official statement still can be superseded by an even more official PEP, it's fine with me. However, I would prefer to not use the verb "support" at all. We (the PSF) don't provide any technical support for any version ever released: '''PSF is making Python available to Licensee on an "AS IS" basis. PSF MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PSF MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.''' The more I think about it: no, there is no official support for the current stable release. We will like produce more bug fix releases, but then, we may not if the volunteers doing so lose time or interest, and 2.6 comes out earlier than planned. Why do you need such a statement?

I think Fedora might want it, per recent discussions on fedora-devel-list.

My impertinent attempt:

"The Python Software Foundation maintains the current stable major release of Python. By "maintains" we mean that the PSF will produce bug fix releases of that version, currently Python 2.5. We have released patches for earlier versions as necessary, such as to fix security problems, but we generally do not make releases of such prior versions. Patched releases of earlier Python versions may be made available through third parties, including OS vendors."

TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson at georgeanelson.com> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>

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