Something called Tauthon is still being patched every few months for people who can't let go of Python 2.7, though I don't see many contributors to that fork.
Sorry, no dice. The Python team said for years as the 2 to 3 rollout grew increasingly catastrophic "If you wan't to keep Python 2 all you have to do is maintain it" and then threatened to sue the guy who called their bluff. It was a real low point in free software.
Red Hat and other large companies have maintained Python for years after 2.7 died (EOL date was January 1st, 2020). IBM/Red Hat offer Python 2.7 including security fixes and bug fixes until 2024 (https://access.redhat.com/solutions/4455511).
Had he just provided patches to Python 2.7, nobody would've batted an eye. Instead, they created an alternative language that was completely different (https://web.archive.org/web/20161210161837/https://www.nafta...).
Founders and core devs indicated that the name was the only problem (https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon/issues/47#issuecomm...) and that even things like the header file names could continue to be named Python because of API compatibility.
You can fork any open source project you like, but you still need to stick follow trademark law. You can't just release Linux 2.7 because you disagree with breaking changes in 3.0 either, but you're free to take the Linux code and release Twonux if you really care.
> Python 2.8 is a backwards-compatible Python interpreter that runs Python 2 code and C-extensions exactly as-is, while also allowing Python 2 programmers to use the most exciting new language features from Python 3.
Really sounds like Python 2.8 to me!
> Something called Tauthon is still being patched every few months for people who can't let go of Python 2.7
I was curious and did a search for Python 2.8 and found:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13144713
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13159144
Clicking on the GitHub repo it seems that in fact the project making unauthorised use of the name “Python 2.8” was the one that ended up changing its name to Tauthon. Neat!
Releasing Python 2.8 would definitely confuse people.
Renaming it is more confusing!
