[systemd-devel] HEADS-UP: splitting python-systemd out

[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

I've been asked to split the python-systemd out of the main systemd tree.
This is the set of python modules which wrap libsystemd. They were
originally started as a separate project by David Strauss. By splitting
them out we return to the origins. In systemd we also use python to
build parts of documentation, and in tests. That use doesn't change.

The new separated package is at https://github.com/systemd/python-systemd
and the pull request for removal from systemd is at
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/501 .
The removal should be merged after the next release, to give a bit
of time for distributions to create the new package.

The motivation for the change is that building python modules requires
additional dependencies (python headers and sphinx), which were not used
otherwise. Distributions also had to build systemd twice, once for
Python 2 and once for Python 3. python-systemd mostly uses the public
API of libsystemd anyway, so splitting it out does not require
duplicating any significant functionality.

Following the example of libudev, I bumped the version of the separated
package to 230, so that it is guaranteed to stay larger than the last
version of systemd still containing python-systemd.
Distributions will have to add a new package. For Fedora this
is almost done (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1240113).

Comments, patches, pull requests — especially for documentation and tests —
are very much welcome.

Zbyszek