[Python-Dev] maintenance of the ElementTree (original) (raw)

[Python-Dev] maintenance of the ElementTree / cElementTree packages in the Python standard library

Eli Bendersky eliben at gmail.com
Fri Feb 10 11:32:29 CET 2012

Hello Fredrik,

Recently a discussion came up on the python-dev mailing list regarding continued maintenance of the ElementTree & cElementTree packages which are part of the standard library, and which were originally contributed by you.

There currently exists an unclear situation with respect to the active maintainer(s) of these packages. On one hand, PEP 360 states that the packages are officially maintained in your repositories and all problems should be assigned to you and fixed upstream. On the other hand, it appears that there has already been made a considerable amount of work (e.g. http://codereview.appspot.com/207048/show) solely within the Python repositories, as well as the port to Python 3 which now lives in all 3.x branches. In other words, de-facto the package has been forked in the Python repository. Note that no changes (AFAIU) have been made to the ElementTree API, only to the implementations living in the stdlib.

I'd like to understand your point of view on this topic. There are currently 23 open issues on the package(s) in the Python tracker, and some additional plans are being made (such as 'import ElementTree' importing the C implementation by default, falling back on the Python implementation if that's unavailable). Is that alright with you that all such new fixes and developments are being made by Python code developers in the Python repositories directly, without waiting for your approval to submit them upstream?

Thanks in advance, Eli

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