On Thu, Apr 2, 2026 at 12:08 PM Stephen J. Turnbull <steve@turnbull.jp> wrote:
Washington Odhiambo via Mailman-users writes:
I think those who want to run bleeding-edge software must be able to find out the details by themselves as opposed to being told how to do it. Ordinary souls like some of us must contend with released versions, not beta :-)
Sure, but this thread was occasioned by trying to run the released Mailman versions on a recent Debian, if I recall correctly. In any case, because of the removal of nntplib from Python 3.13, in that situation there are three plausible paths:
- Install Python 3.12 from source, and use that in your venv.
- pip standard-nntplib from PyPI
- run the HEAD version of Mailman core (at least)
In this case approach 2 is likely the path of least resistance, but this kind of thing could also happen with the distro-installed Django, etc, etc. It's also possible that the user who would normally prefer the stability of the recent versions might be attracted by new features in the expectation that the next release is close and this "beta" version is quite stable.
So I think the "pip from git" approach has occasional value-added to "ordinary souls".
In Africa there is a saying that loosely translates into "if a child cries to be given a razor blade, give it to the child. If the child injures themself with it, s/he will have learnt their lesson" So, yes, there are sould out there who'd feel they want bleeding edge features at the expense of stability or otherwise. Or they just love life on the edge. The documentation should be enhanced to let those people run the git versions, albeit with a big caveat on the life they're like to be facing.
-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 In an Internet failure case, the #1 suspect is a constant: DNS. "Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-) [How to ask smart questions: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html]