Fedora is always moving forward and that means switching to Python 3. There are plenty of upstream projects that already support Python 3. Unfortunately, they are often not packaged in Fedora. We try to keep track of such cases and more in the Fedora Python 3 Porting Database. There, you can see these packages marked with a blue color and listed on the page for Mispackaged packages. Get up to three Fedora badges for updating spec files to support Python 3! Join the porting party, help us move to the future and get your reward. We can port it, but not without your help!

Get involved, port a package

If you want to get the badges or just want to help the community, here’s what you can do:

Pick a Mispackaged package. Open the Bugzilla link and check the status of the package. Post a comment that you are going to make a patch. Prepare a commit for the spec file that makes it Python 3 compatible, create a patch from it, attach it to Bugzilla. Make sure it gets applied. Claim your badge(s).

You’ll get the Parselmouth I badge for your first ported package, the Parselmouth II for first five and the Parselmouth III for the first ten.

Would you like to know more? See our detailed how-to guide.

Python 3 is happening

The first version of Python 3 was released in 2008. Unfortunately, Python 3 isn’t largely backwards-compatible with Python 2. Some projects are approaching the switch slowly. Python core developers have announced that 2.7 is the last 2.x version. In 2020, Python 2 will cease to be maintained.

The adoption of Python 3 by the community is accelerating. More and more projects are dropping Python 2 support, and Fedora will be there to lead the way.

Python 3 in Fedora

Fedora takes great pride in participating in the Python 3 porting effort. Starting from Fedora 23, users will no longer find Python 2 in the default installation of the Workstation, thanks to our Python 3 as Default change. However, our journey is yet to come to an end. Currently, only 47 percent of Python packages in Fedora are ported to Python 3.

Written with help from Tomáš Orsava and Petr Viktorin.