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Author indygreg
Recipients D Gentry, indygreg, paul.moore, r.david.murray, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware
Date 2018-01-06.20:01:32
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Message-id <1515268892.87.0.467229070634.issue31148@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
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I was going to update some CI that tests all supported versions of Python and pins the Python 3 versions. That CI was previously using the MSI installers for Python 3.4. To my surprise, the MSIs stopped being generated after the 3.4.4 release! https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.4/ has MSIs (and MacOS .pkg files). But all subsequent releases (e.g. https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.7/) do not.

I'm OK with the decision to abandon MSIs and move to the .exe installer for newer Python releases (like 3.5 and 3.6). However, ceasing to produce the MSIs (and MacOS .pkg files for that matter) midway through 3.4's support cycle feels wrong to me. 3.4.4 was the last release with binary distributions for Windows and MacOS. 3.4.5 and newer releases have fixes to security issues. That means people using the binary distributions of 3.4 on these platforms are stuck on 3.4.4 and are thus vulnerable to known security issues. That's... not great.

I think the MSI (and .pkg) distributions should be restored for 3.4. Furthermore, I would encourage Python to adopt the practice that distribution mechanisms aren't modified during a Python version's support cycle. Someone will inevitably rely on any distribution format that is published. And taking it away in a support cycle will orphan those users on an old, buggy release.
History
Date User Action Args
2018-01-06 20:01:32indygregsetrecipients: + indygreg, paul.moore, tim.golden, r.david.murray, zach.ware, steve.dower, D Gentry
2018-01-06 20:01:32indygregsetmessageid: <1515268892.87.0.467229070634.issue31148@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2018-01-06 20:01:32indygreglinkissue31148 messages
2018-01-06 20:01:32indygregcreate