Who is working on python3 packages?

David Malcolm dmalcolm at redhat.com
Wed Oct 20 16:29:07 UTC 2010


On Wed, 2010-10-20 at 15:57 +0200, Thomas Spura wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:22:14 -0400
> Neal Becker wrote:
> 
> > Thomas Spura wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:36:23 -0400
> > > Neal Becker wrote:
> > > 
> > >> I have started porting to python3.  So far I have a patch for
> > >> fpconst.  I have not so far been able to contact upstream.
> > >> 
> > >> Maybe we should start a SIG for this?
> > >> 
> > > 
> > >>From time to time, I try to enable a python3 subpackage and open a
> > >>bug,
> > > so the original maintainer accept that change to the package.
> > > If upstream released an extra python3 package, I sometimes package
> > > that and get it in fedora.
> > > 
> > > I don't think we need a python3 SIG for that. Isn't the python SIG
> > > enought? ;-)
> > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Python
> > > 
> > 
> > Going forward, we should expect the current fedora packagers to
> > provide python3 versions?  So bug reports (patches for python3) for
> > fedora python packages should be directed to the respective
> > maintainers?
> > 
> 
> It depends on the respective upstream, some upstreams release two
> different tar balls for python2 and python3 (e.g. chardet). Then we
> need two different packages, if not it's possible to do it in one spec.
> See:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python#Common_SRPM_vs_split_SRPMs
> 
> But if the maintainer of the python2 package hesitates to build a
> python3 package and you want one, you cannot force him to do so...
> Then I don't see another way, than submit a new package review request
> for the python3 package.
> 
> So to answer your question:
> I don't 'expect' the current fedora
> packagers to provide python3 versions, but I 'hope' they do so...
> 
> In your case, you still need to try to contact upstream, or you are
> doing a fork (see
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python#Subpackages).

Ditto to everything Thomas said, however we may be running into another
problem.  If I'm reading:
  http://pypi.python.org/pypi/fpconst/
correctly, that project hasn't had an upstream update in over four
years, and the upstream home page seems to be dead.

So there may be a number of python 2 modules that are either mature or
"good enough", but need porting to work with python 3, and in some of
these cases, upstream may have either disappeared, or lost interest.

My feeling here is that you should make a strong effort to contact
upstream (I'm guessing you've already tried this).  If that fails, 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WhyUpstream
has some notes on "Dead Or Unresponsive Upstream Projects":
"In cases where upstream projects are either dead or unresponsive, it
might be acceptable to patch the software. If upstream is dead, you
might want to consider sharing patches with other distributions or
taking over maintenance if you have the time, skills, and interest. Be
wary of maintaining software with no upstream since all the burden of
maintaining the codebase as well as packaging issues are with you. If
upstream is unresponsive and many distributions are deviating
significantly, it might be a opportunity for a cross distribution fork
(Similar to XFree86 and Xorg)."

I see that you sent a patch to the python-dev mailing list:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2010-October/104784.html
asking about this specific project.

I'm not sure how best to go forward with this kind of thing.  IIRC
"fpconst" is a fairly simple module, and the patch looks simple enough
that it seems reasonable to patch downstream and get a python3-fpconst -
but we don't want every different Linux distribution patching things in
different ways, so perhaps you should talk to e.g. Debian and Gentoo
maintainers of fpconst as well?

Perhaps we need a new category on:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Python3#Porting_status

something like "Python 3 code based on Python 2 code with
apparently-dead upstream" or somesuch?

Hope this is helpful.
Dave



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