This article talks about problem porting patches back to Linux 2.4, and then makes the comparison with python 2. Conceptually, the "breaking backwards compatib

This article talks about problem porting patches back to Linux 2.4, and then makes the comparison with python 2. Conceptually, the "breaking backwards compatibility" argument works, especially for the dependent ecosystem. But, it is worth noting that python 2 and 3 build out of the same branch of the same tree. Indeed, you can build the 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.X grammars all off the same code. Sure, there will be some python 3 specific stuff that won't be included when you build 2.X, but any patches are by definition already backported.