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Comment by Al-Khwarizmi | Hacker News Reader

Python 3 is already a fork.

The problem is that Python 2 cannot evolve freely alongside Python 3, because even if someone wants to maintain it and keep releasing versions, the Python Software Foundation won't let them use the name Python (there was a post some weeks ago about someone who actually tried). So there is no free competition between 2 and 3. 2 has been basically killed by a decision from above.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Python 3 hater. In fact, I have some projects in Python 3 and I would leave Python 2 if I could. But I, like many people, have to code stuff that has dependencies on Python 2, and the way they have handled the update bothers us for no good reason. In fact, the whole schism fiasco is making me use less Python and more Java, where my stone-age code still runs, lately.

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Python 3 is not a fork. It is a major release. A continuation of the same language, by the same people, with very little change in the core concepts. A major release with some backward incompatibilities doesn't constitute a fork.

The previous version is being sunsetted, as is common for legacy software. By the time 2.7 is EOL'd, it will have enjoyed a decade of active development and maintenance. That's just one version of Python.

If there were a compelling enough argument for a fork, it would happen and a new name would be chosen. But alas, it makes very little sense for the wider world.

It's not difficult to write software that works with Python 2 and 3. It's just becoming less and less worth it, as evident by announcements like this Django 2.0 one. The scales have tipped towards Python 3.

The Python Software Foundation are the people who have earned the reputation that the name "Python" has - they're the ones who get to use it. And their judgement is that Python 3 is the future of Python. A fork under a different name can earn its own reputation based on the technical merits of its decisions.

> the Python Software Foundation won't let them use the name Python

That's how trademarks are supposed to work; they must go after anyone using without permission or they lose it.

Or they could give permission.

And have a confusing set of different and incompatible languages with the same name?

People are complaining about Python 3 being named Python because some code breaks under it. That would be hell.

You already have Python 2. This is a continuation of it that is simply closer in semantic to Python 3. How could it be bad if apart from the Unicode semantics the two versions became equivalent?

There is no guarantee the two branches would converge.

Some things that are very useful are backported to 2, but others are just too much work.

The reason you have a trademark is to enforce rights to the name and prevent confusion. If suddenly Python 2.8 would appear it would be easily confused for official release. If it had flaws they often would also land on the official release.

That's why if you want to make a fork you're free to do so, but you need to make a different name. If it's something people desire it will be used, you can't just ride on the popularity of the name. If your fork has different name and is not popular, it means that there was not much interest in it, period.

Some of successful forks:

openOffice -> LibreOffice

MySQL -> MariaDB

ZFS -> OpenZFS

Py2 or PyClassic. They don't own those, and they sure could link to python to py2/PyClassic for people who want to install it. They don't own the letters py.

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