compat-python, Zope...

[Oliver Falk]

Hi Till!

Till Maas wrote:
> On Tue October 14 2008, Oliver Falk wrote:
> 
>> So. Are there reasons, why there are no older Python version available?
>> If we would have it, we could also package Zope/Plone...
> 
> The two main reasons I remember are
> 
> 1) The fear of bug reports because of users running the old python version for 
> software that requires the new one

Hm. This could only happen, if someone would use /usr/bin/python23 or 
/usr/bin/python2.4, instead of /usr/bin/python. It's very unlikely this 
happens by accident - I think... However. I do understand that fear a bit.

> 2) The old python versions do not get security updates

Python 2.3 latest update was on March 11, to version 2.3.7, so this 
seems to be still developed/supported.

Python 2.4 lastest update was also on March 11, to version 2.4.5, so 
this is also still developed/supported.

But of course, security flaws are likely first found in latest versions 
and it's unsure, if they do find their way into older releases....

> So all effort regarding this is best spent on porting Zope to newer python 
> versions.

I would say the same... BUT: I know the Zope developers are trying this 
since a long time already and haven't made much progress - it seems. I'm 
happy they do support Python 2.4 already with their latest Versions.
There's also the problem, that Python versions are a a moving target. 
Eg. October 1: Release of Python 2.6. What does that mean? Fedora 
Rawhide will soon include this - I guess. So as soon as you have ported 
Zope to support Python 2.5, you have 2.6 everywhere. And as soon as you 
have ported Zope to support Python 2.6, there's likely Python 3 :-)

Also, since I'm not an enthusiastic and smart Python developer, this 
sounds quite impossible for me to do...

The only thing I *want*, is to have Zope/Plone and it's deps in Fedora.

We have a lot of Debian servers here, because Zope/Plone works out of 
the box... You understand I want to get rid of these boxes :-)

-of