Path: csiph.com!pasdenom.info!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!srl.newsdeef.eu!news.corradoroberto.it!gothmog.csi.it!bofh.it!news.nic.it!robomod From: Matthias Klose Newsgroups: linux.debian.maint.python Subject: Re: /usr/bin/python3 deprecation and enforcing /usr/bin/python Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:50:01 +0100 Message-ID: References: X-Mailbox-Line: From debian-python-request@lists.debian.org Wed Nov 12 17:42:32 2025 Old-Return-Path: X-Amavis-Spam-Status: No, score=-6.597 tagged_above=-10000 required=5.3 tests=[BAYES_00=-2, KHOP_HELO_FCRDNS=0.399, LDO_WHITELIST=-5, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_H3=0.001, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_WL=0.001, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_RPBL_BLOCKED=0.001, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_SAFE_BLOCKED=0.001] autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Policyd-Weight: using cached result; rate: -2.7 Old-X-Envelope-From: doko@debian.org Old-X-Envelope-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: en-US Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/23347 List-ID: List-URL: List-Archive: https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/f2d5a25d-fa29-40a9-a071-e458570c31b2@debian.org Approved: robomod@news.nic.it Lines: 34 Organization: linux.* mail to news gateway Sender: robomod@news.nic.it X-Original-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:42:11 +0100 X-Original-Message-ID: X-Original-References: <87ldkbxnd7.fsf@angela.anarc.at> Xref: csiph.com linux.debian.maint.python:17146 On 11/12/25 17:39, Jeremy Stanley wrote: > On 2025-11-12 10:49:08 -0500 (-0500), Antoine Beaupré wrote: > [...] >> I've been wondering whether it's time we finally make this change. >> Concretely, I think it means: >> >> 1. deprecating /usr/bin/python3 >> 2. shipping Python 3 as /usr/bin/python directly >> >> I think we should do this for Debian 14 (forky), and stop shipping >> python3 altogether in Debian 15 (?). > [...] > > I can understand the need for #2, but I don't see why you'd ever do #1. > For that matter, the python3 link is still included by upstream Cpython > when doing a `make install` or in a stdlib-created venv. Lots of user- > written scripts use python3 in their shebangs. It's not harming anything > simply by existing, so why deprecate something that can't/shouldn't be > removed? I also don't see the need for #1, but how much of a problem is #1? Or, as mentioned on irc, is that an ansible only issue? Please note, that we still have the python-is-python3 package, which currently is ok to use, the package description says: No packages may declare dependencies on this package. So you can use it in autopkg test triggers and build dependencies. Shipping the /usr/bin/python symlink in an existing package will make it much more difficult to get rid off it later again. Matthias