[Pulp-list] dropping el6 builds of Pulp

[Michael Hrivnak]

We need your input on when to stop making builds of Pulp for el6.

Running Pulp on el6, which uses Python 2.6, has been getting more difficult
over time. Many libraries we depend on have dropped support for Python 2.6,
which exacerbates the usual challenge of making dependencies available on
an aging platform.

The latest news is that epel6 will remove their Django package, Django14.
It has multiple CVEs (none of which we think affect Pulp) and is
unsupported upstream. There is no supported version of Django that runs on
Python 2.6. Thus epel has decided to remove this package from epel6 some
time between Jan 31 and March 31 of 2017. Once that happens, Pulp will not
be installable on el6 unless you provide that package some other way.

As a workaround, el6 installation could theoretically continue after
Django14 is removed by manually installing the rpm, which is accessible
from the EPEL build system. But the dev team does not want to take
responsibility for supporting that package; thus we need to phase out
support for Pulp on el6.

We want to make the transition off of el6 as smooth as it reasonably can
be, so please give us some feedback. Here are two options to start the
conversation:

1. Make 2.11 the last Pulp release to have el6 packages. All 2.11.z
releases would get el6 support. 2.12 would have el7 and Fedora packages
only.

2. Make el6 builds available until the day Django14 gets removed from
epel6. On that day, Pulp on el6 would become unsupported and builds would
stop.

Have any other ideas, or feedback on those?

Thanks for your input,
Michael
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