Semantic versioning exists, means something, and is fairly unambiguous. It's not compulsory, but not following it is kind of a dick move. At any rate, the poin

Semantic versioning exists, means something, and is fairly unambiguous. It's not compulsory, but not following it is kind of a dick move. At any rate, the point of the article was that Python 2 to Python 3 levels of disruption are not going to happen again and that people waiting for that (the "Python 4000" people) are going to be disappointed, so they should stop proposing disruptive and non-backwards compatible enhancements that aren't compelling. Where he says "no major backwards compatibility breaks" is important. edit: more succinctly, "don't worry, we won't pull a 2 to 3 level move again any time soon, if ever"