F23 System Wide Change: Python 3 as Default

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Robert Kuska <rkuska at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Kevin Fenzi" <kevin at scrye.com>
>> To: devel at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2015 9:11:36 PM
>> Subject: Re: F23 System Wide Change: Python 3 as Default
>>
>> Greetings.
>>
>> In today's FESCo meeting we had a lot of discussion about this change.
>>
>> You can read the meeting yourself in:
>> http://meetbot-raw.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2015-06-17/fesco.2015-06-17-18.00.log.html#l-109
>>
>> Speaking only for myself here:
>>
>> I am very happy we are moving more things to python3 and I appreciate
>> it's a lot of work and effort. :)
>>
>> I don't think we should use the word 'default' in this change unless we
>> define really what that means. It seems like it means different things
>> to different people.
>>
>> It would be great to come up with an "finished" state for this, but I
>> don't know what it would really be. When all our tools used to build
>> Fedora are ported? When no python2 depending packages are in repos?
>> When python2 is no longer shipped?
>>
>
> It is written in a scope what does 'default' stands for.

Which is exactly what not everyone agrees with.  Specifically for me,
claiming an implementation is the default when the tools we have to
use to build the distro don't work with python3 is pretty dubious
(fedora-packager, bodhi client, koji client, etc).

> Also from a additional porting POV (packages which ain't covered by scope
> and are python2 only) it is important to have stated that the default python
> for Fedora is python3 as it will help (a bit at least) as leverage for those
> who are reluctant to port their codebase to python3.

I doubt that very much.  Progress continues to be made.  Claiming it
is default by cutting out things we still need from the scope doesn't
make it magically more important for everyone else.

> After we get this change through we may focus on additional porting in next fedora
> releases (new system wide change [if needed] for fedora packaging tools for example)
> and again, use the already accepted fact about python3 being the default fedora python.

The porting needs to happen regardless, and it should already be in plan.

> From my POV it is very important to keep the 'default' in the change name.
>
> My 2 cents.

This was said in F21 and F22 as well.  We've seen this change 3
releases in a row and a _lot_ of progress has still been made even
without the "default" claim.

josh