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@anteru I'm really torn between major/minor on this one

@daniel_collin I'm torn between patch and minor because for someone already on 3.10 there's no difference, and for someone running older versions ... well, tough luck, at some point you'll need to upgrade. I'm trying to stick to what the last Ubuntu LTS has to make it easy already, and it kind of feels weird to go to 3.0 major just because Python 3.8 got dropped, as a 3.10 user will notice nothing changed (on the surface.)

@anteru @daniel_collin I think minor is fine, but I’d do major myself just to be clearer.

@neilhenning @anteru @daniel_collin probably minor, you can link the PR in the release notes so folks can back out or work around it locally if it's really a problem

@kwramm The users use it as a CLI program, unless they wrote their own plugin. For "normal" use I'd assume they use a docker container or a recent enough Linux version to not care. For someone already on Python 3.10 there's no difference in most cases, so a patch bump seems fine ...?

@anteru I'd pick minor then. Pretty much all Python 3.8 code should run on 3.10 and newer. Some minor problems might happen on the fringes (like there were some type checking changes - but I think nothing breaking)

@micha For you as a user the application itself looks and feels the same. A 2.6 bump feels like something actually changed for everyone, but the reality is for a Python 3.10 user nothing changes. I just can't easily decouple from Python itself; unlike let's say a compiled program where I wouldn't bump the minor version when going from Visual Studio 2019 to 2022 for example (why would you care?) Python has behavioral changes (deprecations, etc.) when they bump minor version numbers.

@anteru ah sorry, I expected that users create python scripts like in Blender. In that case if the python version change was major it should be reflected also in the app version depending on it. But if python is not exposed publicly, no need to be that strict IMHO.

@micha They can write plugins all-right, but those plugins will just work with a newer Python version (unless you depend on something only available on that old version of Python.) The API surface doesn't use new Python features, meaning if you wrote a plugin on Python 3.8 vs. my API at version 2.5, it'll work _unchanged_ on Python 3.10 as the API is the same (I just happen to use Python 3.10 features in the implementation.)

@anteru not sure if I understand things correctly.

The python version change 3.8 -> 3.10 is a minor one, right? new (features / API but fully backward compatible)
Hence, a minor bump for the full application as well.

Basically, my point is that since the bundled Python is exposed and part of the API and the same semantic versioning rules should apply. Should they not?

What would be an argument for doing a major or only a patch version change in your application if 1 part had a minor change?

@micha For the end user it's just a matter of installing the right Python runtime. Their stuff works the same. Think: If your application requires Windows 10 now (and no longer runs on Windows 7), but is otherwise the exact same (it just uses a new thing internally), would you call it a new major release? For the user, it looks and feels the same, they just need to update their environment.

@micha No, I read your reply that way, I was trying to explain why _I_ was arguing for patch release :)

@anteru thx, I think I understand now why all options are applicable.

My previous argument was assuming that python is bundled (like Blender does) and the newer version adds to the API. Then it would be a minor bump.

But you are using the system python, right?

And if people already used the newer version before, it's a patch for those.
However, for those with the older python version installed, which gets dropped, it's a major change.

Would bundling python be an option for the future?

@micha I'm using the system Python, yes. Bundling - not so sure. There's PyInstaller but it's fairly unusual to use that over shipping things as Python modules, especially as Python's ecosystem does encourage creating a virtual environment and installing your stuff there (also, it's a huge installation and/or overhead over a "plain" Python script.)

@anteru ah sorry again, I didn't get that the whole application is written in Python. Then bundling the interpreter doesn't make much sense but the patch version bump does I guess.

@nemo Ubuntu LTS etc. are already on 3.10. I would also expect (Linux) users to package the application into a container if they can't use the OS Python.