On: One impact of the dropping of Python 2 from Linux distributions

[downerending]

A big problem is that Python 2 and Python 3 are simply not the same language. They look a lot alike, but they have substantial differences.

So, it's not just that Python 3 has arrived, but that a separate and widely used language is being killed, in a way that may very well stick.

That's really a rather bizarre turn, and hasn't happened that much in the history of programming languages. I'm having trouble thinking of a similar example. Perhaps Objective-C or VB, but those they were controlled by corporations.

In the open source world, has the stick ever been used before to kill off a language?

[gerikson → downerending]

How do you kill off an open source project? Anyone is free to continue to maintain and extend Python 2 (possibly under another name).

[downerending → gerikson]

Kind of, but I do think it's accurate to say that a large contingent is trying to extinguish Python 2 as a language. They wouldn't even deny it.