Cannot release 3.9.0a4

[ambv (Łukasz Langa)]

Currently Buildbots are reporting that master is not in a releasable state:

https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/release_status

Namely, it does not build on Windows 7:

• https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/150/builds/338
• https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/81/builds/390

and suffers from test failures on:

• macOS (importlib) - https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/275/builds/249
• Fedora (shutil and zipfile) - https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/449/builds/31

Please look at this, especially the Windows compile failure. I will be attempting 3.9.0a4 next week with 3.8.2 final.

[gpshead (Gregory P. Smith)]

Should we be caring about Windows 7 for 3.9 now that Microsoft has abandoned it?

[steve.dower]

No. Windows 7 is unsupported and we’re just waiting on the buildbot owners to disable them.

[ambv (Łukasz Langa)]

That’s good news, will be ignoring Windows 7 in the meantime. @steve.dower, we should also update PEP 11 with this information.

The current buildbot status is still not good regardless:

Ignoring Windows 7, there’s 4 other test failures on stable buildbots:

• macOS failing on importlib tests: https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/275/builds/251
• s390x having issues with test_struct: https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/505/builds/2, https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/builders/538/builds/2

I have no information on S390 being unsupported so this needs fixing.

[steve.dower]

@ambv

That’s good news, will be ignoring Windows 7 in the meantime. @steve.dower, we should also update PEP 11 with this information.

PEP 11 should already say that we only support the versions that Microsoft provides extended support for on our release date. That way there’s no need to keep updating it regularly (especially since tracking Windows Server is a little more complicated, and Windows 10 updates even more so).