Add a page about the status of the Python releases

[ezio-melotti]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

In endoflife-date/endoflife.date#711 it was pointed out that it's not easy for users to find information about the status of the Python releases. The devguide has some information, but it's targeted to developers and it's not easy to find. It was suggested to add a page to python.org that lists the current status of the Python releases.

Describe the solution you'd like

I'm currently working on a PR that will create two machine-parsable csvs that list the status of the Python branches:

• Replace the "Status of the Python branches" table with a csv. devguide#884

In order to avoid having multiple files that need to be updated whenever a new version is released, I suggest to use those files as the authoritative source, and use them to generate the content of this new python.org page.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• python.org could have its own list -- independent from the devguide -- updated either manually or automatically. I'm not familiar with the python.org workflow enough to tell how difficult it would be set up the suggested solution compared to having a separate list, but having multiple sources for the same information is generally something that we should avoid.
• Having this page on docs.python.org is an option too, but d.p.o is versioned and this might cause problems (e.g. older versions will have outdated copies).
• Having this page only on the devguide is also an option, but the devguide is aimed to CPython developers, not users. This makes it less discoverable, and possibly more confusing since it currently talks about branches -- not releases.

Additional context

If this feature request is accepted, I will use the feedback to update the PR mentioned above.

[captn3m0]

+1 for this. https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php is a good reference - on the main website, targeted to end-users, and is not versioned.

Ideally, all of the information collected at https://endoflife.date/python should be available under a single page at python.org.

[ezio-melotti]

@captn3m0, would it be fine for you if the source is one (or two) csv in the devguide repo or are you planning to scrape/parse the final page at python.org?

[captn3m0]

Specifically for endoflife.date - the information could be anywhere - we only scrape release dates currently via tags on the cypthon repo.

For EOL information, we're okay tracking changes to the CSV or website.

However, keeping this information in two places wouldn't be advisable - having a single canonical page for support information at python.org would be ideal. The devguide could just link here instead.

Ideally, all of the information collected at https://endoflife.date/python should be available under a single page at python.org.

To clarify a bit, here's what I mean by all information:

1. List of currently supported releases (with patch numbers)
2. EOL dates for each of the release cycles
3. Release and Support Policy

[ezio-melotti]

@captn3m0: we now have https://devguide.python.org/versions/ which includes both the supported and no longer supported versions.

As part of python/devguide#884, I'm still planning to replace both tables with two CSVs (or one that gets split while rendering the docs through an extension).

[captn3m0]

All the current (and proposed) devguide pages are missing patch numbers for supported versions.

endoflifenotes down supported versions (3.10.5, 3.9.13, 3.8.13, 3.7.13) while the latter only notes supported branches.

Using complete version numbers here is important, see point 2 in our recommendations here