Re: /usr/bin/python3 deprecation and enforcing /usr/bin/python

[Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>]

On 11/12/25 17:39, Jeremy Stanley wrote:
> On 2025-11-12 10:49:08 -0500 (-0500), Antoine Beaupré wrote:
> [...]
> > I've been wondering whether it's time we finally make this change. 
> > Concretely, I think it means:
> >
> > 1. deprecating /usr/bin/python3
> > 2. shipping Python 3 as /usr/bin/python directly
> >
> > I think we should do this for Debian 14 (forky), and stop shipping 
> > python3 altogether in Debian 15 (?).
> [...]
>
> I can understand the need for #2, but I don't see why you'd ever do #1. 
> For that matter, the python3 link is still included by upstream Cpython 
> when doing a `make install` or in a stdlib-created venv. Lots of user- 
> written scripts use python3 in their shebangs. It's not harming anything 
> simply by existing, so why deprecate something that can't/shouldn't be 
> removed?

I also don't see the need for #1, but how much of a problem is #1? Or, 
as mentioned on irc, is that an ansible only issue?

Please note, that we still have the python-is-python3 package, which 
currently is ok to use, the package description says:

 No packages may declare dependencies on this package.

So you can use it in autopkg test triggers and build dependencies.

Shipping the /usr/bin/python symlink in an existing package will make it 
much more difficult to get rid off it later again.

Matthias