Remove support for Python 3.6?

[tomschr]

Remove support for Python 3.6?

[tlaferriere]

I think we should drop support for python 3.6 in the next release.
Dropping support for python 3.6 does not mean all the previous versions published on PyPI will be removed and unavailable, so the impact for users on python 3.6 will not be felt if they do not upgrade the package indiscriminately. Also to prevent accidental upgrades, I think we can set the minimum python version in the setup.(py|cfg)and that should prevent python 3.6 users from installing it. Usually, users of eol python versions generally do not actively develop their applications, therefore would not want to use new features just for the sake of it.

Otherwise, I think dropping support for an eol python version on its own would not warrant a major version release for two reasons. First, it is not a public API change, which is what semver compatibility is all about. This would make it a patch release, since it is an implementation change (that may break dependencies of they depended on the"buggy" implementation). Second, there are other mechanisms to preserve compatibility on the python interpreter level in this context.

For these reasons, limited impact on the community and the fact that it is not a public API change, I think we should not think twice about dropping support for eol python versions, but make sure that users of eol python versions can't upgrade by using the appropriate configuration for our PyPI deployment.

[tomschr]

Thanks Thomas for your opinions. 👍 I had similar thoughts, but you summed it up perfectly.

I will leave the poll open for some time. If the majority agrees, I'll remove 3.6 and increase the minimum Python version to 3.7.

Thanks!