For me, and perhaps others, there is a desire to see this project explicitly move aside (vs slowly die), so that poetry and other projects can take the reins.

For me, and perhaps others, there is a desire to see this project explicitly move aside (vs slowly die), so that poetry and other projects can take the reins. A lot of people say “just fork it” or “choose something else”, but the problem is that python is a finite community with a finite amount of energy, and a lot of this energy has been absorbed by the star power Kenneth acquired from his prior successes (namely, requests... which btw now has an even better replacement called httpx). It’s almost like Kent needs to come out and say “I’m sorry I screwed up, here’s my towel; good night.”, so that people can move on.