[Python-Dev] PEP 382: Namespace Packages

Mon Apr 6 18:28:43 CEST 2009

On Mon, 6 Apr 2009 at 12:00, Jesse Noller wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
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>>>> On Apr 6, 2009, at 9:21 AM, Jesse Noller wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 4:33 PM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2009年04月02日 17:32, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> I propose the following PEP for inclusion to Python 3.1.
>>>>>>>> Thanks for picking this up.
>>>>>>>> I'd like to extend the proposal to Python 2.7 and later.
>>>>>>>>>> -1 to adding it to the 2.x series. There was much discussion around
>>> adding features to 2.x *and* 3.0, and the consensus seemed to *not*
>>> add new features to 2.x and use those new features as carrots to help
>>> lead people into 3.0.
>>>> Actually, isn't the policy just that nothing can go into 2.7 that isn't
>> backported from 3.1?  Whether the actual backport happens or not is up to
>> the developer though.  OTOH, we talked about a lot of things and my
>> recollection is probably fuzzy.
>>>> Barry
>> That *is* the official policy, but there was discussions around no
> further backporting of features from 3.1 into 2.x, therefore providing
> more of an upgrade incentive

My sense was that this wasn't proposed as a hard and fast rule, more
as a strongly suggested guideline.
And in this case, I think you could argue that the PEP is actually
fixing a bug in the current namespace packaging system.
Some projects, especially the large ones where this matters most, are
going to have to maintain backward compatibility for 2.x for a long time
even as 3.x adoption accelerates. It seems a shame to require packagers
to continue to deal with the problems caused by the current system even
after all the platforms have made it to 2.7+.
--David