[ZF] LWN: Fedora7 dropping Zope due to Python 2.5 incompatibility

[Jim Fulton]

On May 10, 2007, at 6:58 AM, Jeff Rush wrote:
...
> I'm a bit unclear and
> have no visibility into why so little testing of Zope is done with
> developmental versions of Python, considering (a) how tightly  
> wedded Zope is
> to the Python API and (b) the large number of users of Zope.  While  
> the core
> Zope developers are very busy, I'm sure, statistically I would have  
> expected a
> slew of bug reports, of the form of what Tres has done here, filed  
> by the
> non-core developers identifying specific failures.
>
> I'll try to get some of the local Zope users to file reports/ 
> patches.  The
> lack of support for Python 2.5 is having two impacts -- Zope being  
> dropped
> from Fedora lowers its profile in certain communities, and the  
> inability to
> run applications like Zope with Python 2.5 is causing distributions  
> to hold
> off mainlining 2.5, hurting overall adoption of the new 2.5  
> features.  I've
> certainly been unable to switch to 2.5, except for concept demos,  
> due to lack
> of support for it in various required packages.
>
> And there is the fact that Jeremy Katz, the Python maintainer for  
> Fedora, is
> getting beat up a bit about this.  It'd be a shame for him to burn  
> out or
> become antagonistic to Zope due to pressure from Fedora to work  
> with the
> upstream and "do something" about a situation too big for one  
> person.  Zope
> needs friends.
>
> No magic wand - just my .02 cents.

Thanks.

I'll note that this is a place where some kind of healthy foundation  
software-development organization would probably be very helpful to  
marshal the efforts of the community.

It might be useful for those people who think we should have  
prevented this to think how the Foundation might have helped -- and  
share their thoughts.

Personally, I think it would have been good to have prevented this.   
As Jeff suggests, we should have been more active in testing against  
Python 2.5.  It has been suggested to me that having Python core  
developers working at Zope Corporation probably made the last few new  
Python versions more compatible than they otherwise would have been.   
Now that that isn't the case anymore, we need to be more proactive as  
a community.  It also can't fall on one person's shoulders and we  
can't assume that someone else is doing it.

Jim

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