Python 2 was supported for way longer than initially announced. Distutils as well. Maybe deprecated is not a strong enough signal because many projects hesitate

Python 2 was supported for way longer than initially announced. Distutils as well. Maybe deprecated is not a strong enough signal because many projects hesitate to cut stuff loose that they deprecated because of the community backslash. Sometimes things have to be deprecated, but the community will never get around to adapt to that if they stick around forever. Compared to that, Java still carries some deprecated items around. But with Java 9, deprecation for removal was introduced, which is a strong signal that stuff will be gone in two releases. Kubernetes has a strict deprecation policy as well, such that skipping more than two releases is asking for trouble.