[Zope-dev] dropping Python 2.4 support in the Zope Toolkit?

[Stephan Richter]

On Tuesday 05 May 2009, Martin Aspeli wrote:
> > Since I haven't seen such arguments besides the Plone 3.x related ones,
> > I will amend the zope toolkit decisions about this.
>
> We've had some more discussions about this and the Plone release
> schedule. The upshot is that if Zope 3/Toolkit drops Python 2.4 support,
> it will effectively render it inaccessible to Plone users for the next
> 12-18 months. We're not comfortable moving to Zope 2.12 for the 3.x
> series. We may be able to move to Zope 2.11, which *may* work with
> Python 2.5, but this is not clear.

Hi Martijn,

I do think that we should care a lot about the Plone user base. Right now it 
is by far the largest sub-community we have. Let me give you an example, 
where I think that dropping Python 2.4 support in general will actually 
massively increase the compatibility burden elsewhere.

Plone is using z3c.form. We are currently in the process of releasing z3c.form 
2.0, which has a massive amount of new features, which are very useful. As a 
z3c.form developer I want to stay compatible with the current Plone release, 
because (a) the code gets tested in a very different environment, and (b) it 
probably represents my largest user base. By dropping Python 2.4 support for 
the Toolkit, I now have stay compatible with 2 or 3 versions of the KGS (Zope 
3.3?, Zope 3.4, Zope Toolkit 1.0) and 2 or 3 Python versions (2.4, 2.5, 
2.6?). This is a major burden. The problem is that I have this burden for 
every package that I care about to be usable in Plone.

As a corollary, I Think it is important that a Plone developer is on the 
Toolkit Steering committee.

Regards,
Stephan
-- 
Stephan Richter
Web Software Design, Development and Training
Google me. "Zope Stephan Richter"