4 ms·

Feels kind of weird. There are quite a few Unix utilities that are essentially in maintenance mode but nonetheless part of the "canon" that one expects to be p

Feels kind of weird. There are quite a few Unix utilities that are essentially in maintenance mode but nonetheless part of the "canon" that one expects to be present on almost any modern machine. What's the rationale for 'python2' not being one as well? The standard argument would seem to be that 'python3' exists, but it's not really the same language or compatible. A better argument would be that it's not really clear who's going to do upstream support for python2. I suspect a group will spring up, though. I still encounter more python2 software than python3 software.

Lammy 7y ago
> I still encounter more python2 software than python3 software. Well, you're looking at the way this will change. I've been through this before when Perl was removed from the base FreeBSD system some time back in the 4.x days. It felt weird at the time too but was obviously the correct decision in hindsight.
- downerending 7y ago
  Though I'm no longer a fan of Perl, I like the idea that a reasonably up-to-date version can be expected on modern Linux systems. Disk space is so cheap, it seems crazy to strip it out just to save a few megabytes, except perhaps on embedded platforms. I spend a lot of time fixing other people's stuff, and it's exasperating to log into a system only to discover that it's missing such basic tools. (emacs and strace are more important to me, but the idea is the same.)
  - Lammy 7y ago
    It's worth the reduction in attack surface: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=1885 https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... I concede it is a little different on FreeBSD where the "base system" is developed in a single source tree and released as a complete OS. Third-party interpreters/libraries like Perl are more visibly alien there than on a Linux distro where everything effectively is.
    - downerending 7y ago
      Hmm. As long as nothing is setuid, mere presence of different language interpreters doesn't sound like it would make much difference. I suppose a nicely set up host would be a bit more attractive as a target, and similarly a VMS box not be an attractive target, no matter how insecure it is. Still, I wouldn't want to switch back to VMS.
      - Lammy 7y ago
        Well in the case I'm remembering a lot of setuid system utilities were written in Perl and had to be re-written in C before the interpreter and libraries could be excised. I don't know to what extent Python 2 exhibits that problem for most *nix systems.
        downerending 7y ago
        I agree completely with switching the language for various distribution utilities to more modern languages as needed. I'm rather arguing against removing vanilla language environments that have attained the status of being ubiquitous, e.g., to save space or militate against the usage of "old" languages.
      - rbanffy 7y ago
        I you find a VMS box deployed, you can bet it's controlling something really, really important nobody wants to mess with. Either that, or it's a machine someone forgot to decommission and that's still there, sitting in a cabinet, eagerly waiting for that terminal connection that'll never come.
oddity 7y ago
Python 2 is no longer receiving security updates as of 2020, so the hand is forced. When you're an operating system vendor, expecting some support team to materialize to handle security updates for a package as big as python isn't a viable option unless that team is yours.
- downerending 7y ago
  Hard to say. It may very well be that supporting Python2 for the next 20 years could be a tidy gig for a couple of people. I've considered jumping in myself.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    If you can assemble a big enough team of competent people to maintain it, you could perhaps make the argument for Canonical to include it.

Lammy 7y ago

> I still encounter more python2 software than python3 software. Well, you're looking at the way this will change. I've been through this before when Perl was removed from the base FreeBSD system some time back in the 4.x days. It felt weird at the time too but was obviously the correct decision in hindsight.

downerending 7y ago
Though I'm no longer a fan of Perl, I like the idea that a reasonably up-to-date version can be expected on modern Linux systems. Disk space is so cheap, it seems crazy to strip it out just to save a few megabytes, except perhaps on embedded platforms. I spend a lot of time fixing other people's stuff, and it's exasperating to log into a system only to discover that it's missing such basic tools. (emacs and strace are more important to me, but the idea is the same.)
- Lammy 7y ago
  It's worth the reduction in attack surface: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=1885 https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... I concede it is a little different on FreeBSD where the "base system" is developed in a single source tree and released as a complete OS. Third-party interpreters/libraries like Perl are more visibly alien there than on a Linux distro where everything effectively is.
  - downerending 7y ago
    Hmm. As long as nothing is setuid, mere presence of different language interpreters doesn't sound like it would make much difference. I suppose a nicely set up host would be a bit more attractive as a target, and similarly a VMS box not be an attractive target, no matter how insecure it is. Still, I wouldn't want to switch back to VMS.
    - Lammy 7y ago
      Well in the case I'm remembering a lot of setuid system utilities were written in Perl and had to be re-written in C before the interpreter and libraries could be excised. I don't know to what extent Python 2 exhibits that problem for most *nix systems.
      - downerending 7y ago
        I agree completely with switching the language for various distribution utilities to more modern languages as needed. I'm rather arguing against removing vanilla language environments that have attained the status of being ubiquitous, e.g., to save space or militate against the usage of "old" languages.
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      I you find a VMS box deployed, you can bet it's controlling something really, really important nobody wants to mess with. Either that, or it's a machine someone forgot to decommission and that's still there, sitting in a cabinet, eagerly waiting for that terminal connection that'll never come.

oddity 7y ago

Python 2 is no longer receiving security updates as of 2020, so the hand is forced. When you're an operating system vendor, expecting some support team to materialize to handle security updates for a package as big as python isn't a viable option unless that team is yours.

downerending 7y ago
Hard to say. It may very well be that supporting Python2 for the next 20 years could be a tidy gig for a couple of people. I've considered jumping in myself.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  If you can assemble a big enough team of competent people to maintain it, you could perhaps make the argument for Canonical to include it.