[Python-Dev] time-based releases (was Re: Preserving the definition order of class namespaces.) (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Wed May 27 23:45:52 CEST 2015

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:

On May 27, 2015, at 05:15 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:

>How about a feature release once a year, on a schedule we choose as best for >us. We discussed timed releases ages ago and they were rejected by the majority. Time-based releases can make a lot of sense, especially if the interval is short enough. If a feature doesn't make it into the May 2015 release, oh well, there will be another one in X months. Ubuntu has had a lot of success with X=6 time-based releases. That's not to say there aren't plenty of logistics to work out, or that they are a panacea, or even that they would work with an all-volunteer developer community. But time-based releases do have advantages too, and maybe those would outweigh the disadvantages for Python at this point.

This favors developers (who want to see their feature launched) and early adopters (who want to try out shiny new features).

The current system (release every 18-24 months) was established when users who were decidedly not early adopters started complaining about the breakneck pace of Python releases.

It's quite possible that the current crop of Python users are less averse to change (although the conversion rate to Python 3 seems to indicate otherwise). But it's also hard to compare Ubuntu (which is a roll-up of thousands of different open-source projects, with a large variety of different release schedules) to Python (which is a single, centrally-controlled code base).

What do other projects that are at most 1 order of magnitude smaller or larger than Python do? E.g. the Linux kernel, or Mysql, or Qt?

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