We discussed the future fate of the /usr/bin/python symlink at the language summit (and a little further at the sprints), and it currently seems likely that we're going to go down the path of the Python Launcher for Windows model, and make "python" refer to a configurable shim that:
- Launches an administrator configured Python version by default
- Can be switched to run a different Python via command line options
This is essentially the rubypick model, but the CLI and configuration file format will be defined by CPython upstream rather than by the distro.
It seems that Debian people are already onto something. I just saw
there are still many Debian developers that will do their best to make sure /usr/bin/python points to /usr/bin/python2.7 at least until 2025 or so (assuming we'll still have this package in the archive after 2020)
That said, we'll do our best to remove this package from most/all installations.
Hi, BTW. I'm lurking here since a while :)