[Xapian-discuss] Dropping support for python 2.2

[Richard Boulton]

We're planning to drop support for python 2.2 in the 1.1.0 release.

The Python 2.2 release series last had a release nearly 5 years ago, and 
is now essentially unsupported by upstream (there is a security patch 
for the latest release (2.2.3) listed on the download page, but they 
haven't gone to the trouble of rolling a release based on it).

We don't normally support bindings for versions of languages which are 
not supported upstream, but python 2.2 has "just worked" for a while, so 
there's been no reason to get rid of it.

Currently, xapian still works with python 2.2, but it is beginning to 
show signs of becoming a maintenance headache, and I expect this burden 
to increase over the next year.  In particular, we will shortly be 
starting work on supporting python 3.0, which is a fairly major update; 
supporting python 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 in parallel with 3.0 is going to be 
enough  work.

If anyone is still using 2.2, and desperately wants us to continue to 
support it in the 1.1.0 release, now is the time to make your case!

-- 
Richard