Remove python 2.7 as requirement from the README.md

[Pomax]

Python 2.7 is dead. No "if"s, no "but"s, no "we're keeping it around because...": it's well and truly dead,

Given that it got killed on January first, 2020, which is nearing two months ago, can we remove it from the README.md as a valid requirement? (as well as everywhere else it's still being referenced?)

[cclauss]

Is the npm package manager which currently embeds a v5 version of node-gyp fully capable of functioning properly on a Python 3-only box? Would it have trouble with #2009?

[rvagg]

Yeah, it's still on 5.0.5 and unfortunately people are still directed here for details on what to install with native addons. Maybe once we get npm out with ^5.1.0 we can start being more aggressive with our README?

[Pomax]

Sounds like a plan, I've filed a feature request over on the npm issue tracker to bump that version to at least 5.1.0 .

[cclauss]

My bet is that this would be SemVer Major. At what stage would it intersect https://github.com/nodejs/release#nodejs-release-working-group ?

[richardlau]

My bet is that this would be SemVer Major. At what stage would it intersect https://github.com/nodejs/release#nodejs-release-working-group ?

It doesn't? At least so far Release has not been involved with node-gyp.

[Pomax]

Not directly, but they'd have to decide whether an updated npm with python-3-only node-gyp (which isn't backward compatibility breaking in terms of API, but definitely backward compatibility breaking in terms of actually running npm installs on machines that only have python 2.7, for whatever reason) requires a major semver update to Node, or whether it can slip in on a minor/patch release. Given that node-gyp is the defacto build system for Node, their awareness is certainly not something to discount.

I've filed https://github.com/nodejs/Release/issues/538 for that purpose.

[Pomax]

A correction on the timeline, I missed the fact that a press release late last December pushed the EOL date back to April 1st, so there's a few more weeks left before Python 2.7 is well and truly dead.

[filips123]

@Pomax Actually no.

EOL already happened on January 1. Development of Python 2.7 already stopped. PSF already stopped providing official support.

However, the last release will be in April, but EOL is still on January 1.

[cclauss]

The "bible" of these things is... https://devguide.python.org/devcycle/#end-of-life-branches and https://devguide.python.org/#status-of-python-branches

[Pomax]

Even better, thank you.

[owl-from-hogvarts]

README.md does not contain any mention of python 2.7, so can this issue be closed?

[richardlau]

https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/pull/2300 removed Python 2 support.