Bug 1738080

Summary:	mediawiki depends on Python 2
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Lumír Balhar <lbalhar>
Component:	mediawiki	Assignee:	Michael Cronenworth <mike>
Status:	CLOSED RAWHIDE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	31	CC:	Axel.Thimm, mhroncok, mike, puiterwijk
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Triaged
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:	mediawiki-1.33.0-2.fc32	Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2019-09-13 22:23:18 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:
Bug Blocks:	1698500

Description Lumír Balhar 2019-08-06 12:50:14 UTC

Python 2.7 will reach end-of-life in January 2020, over 9 years after it was released. This falls within the Fedora 31 lifetime.
Packages that depend on Python 2 are being switched to Python 3 or removed from Fedora: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/F31_Mass_Python_2_Package_Removal#Information_on_Remaining_Packages
Python 2 will be retired in Fedora 32: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RetirePython2

To help planning, we'd like to know the plans for mediawiki's future. Specifically:


- What is the reason for the Python2 dependency? (Is it software written in Python, or does it just provide Python bindings, or use Python in the build system or test runner?) 

- What are the upstream/community plans/timelines regarding Python 3?

- What is the guidance for porting to Python 3? (Assuming that there is someone who generally knows how to port to Python 3, but doesn't know anything about the particular package, what are the next steps to take?)


This bug is filed semi-automatically, and might not have all the context specific to mediawiki.
If you need anything from us, or something is unclear, please mention it here.

Thank you.

Comment 1 Ben Cotton 2019-08-13 17:44:35 UTC

This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 31 development cycle.
Changing version to 31.

Comment 2 Lumír Balhar 2019-08-14 09:06:48 UTC

Please answer the above questions. If you don't the package can be orphaned: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/F31_Mass_Python_2_Package_Removal#Information_on_Remaining_Packages

If you need any information or help, please let us know.

Comment 3 Michael Cronenworth 2019-08-14 18:31:32 UTC

Don't threaten with an orphan action. It's not nice.

mediawiki is written in PHP. The *three* Python files out of the 13375 total files are optional support files.

$ rpm -ql mediawiki | grep \\.py
/usr/share/mediawiki/extensions/ConfirmEdit/captcha-old.py
/usr/share/mediawiki/extensions/ConfirmEdit/captcha.py
/usr/share/mediawiki/maintenance/language/zhtable/Makefile.py

I'll contact upstream when I have free time to see if they are going to port them, but I'm sure I can ship patches to fix them. I already do so to fix their shebang...

Comment 4 Lumír Balhar 2019-08-22 06:46:58 UTC

Thank you for the info.

The current plan is to remove packages with dependency on Python 2 from Fedora 32 in the middle of November 2019. If you want to keep your package in Fedora after that date and you cannot port it to Python 3 yet, you need to request a FESCo exception for the package and all its Python 2 dependencies (even transitive) [1]. If you don't want to maintain it anymore, and nothing in Fedora uses it, you can retire it or just remove the Python 2 part from it (subpackage, module, bindings, etc.).

If you're considering filing the exception request, let us know. We can help (for example, we can help find all the dependencies).

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RetirePython2#FESCo_exceptions

Comment 5 Miro Hrončok 2019-09-13 22:35:33 UTC

> Don't threaten with an orphan action. It's not nice.

I'm sorry if this feels not nice. We deal with hundreds of such packages and we need to inform the maintainers this can happen, otherwise they are surprised (and we need to be able to orphan the packages where the maintainers don't respond without running the nonresponsive policy). We always try to be nice and relax the process for packagers who just need more time and resources, but unfortunately we ultimately need a "big stick" to get things done.

Thanks for fixing mediawiki and actually responding, it is really appreciated!