New release on PyPI?

[pganssle]

Since this library is vendored by pip, which is itself vendored in CPython's ensurepip module, the fact that there's no release that includes PR #403 is blocking the removal of the deprecated abstract base classes from the collections module, long advertised as happening in Python 3.8, see python/cpython#10596

Normally I am the last person to ask for releases (I assume maintainers have good reasons for not doing so, and I usually don't like being on the receiving end of such requests), but the deadline for the 3.8 beta release is coming up very soon, so if there's any way to expedite an html5lib release it would really help that effort, and it would avoid stickier solutions like patching html5lib directly in pip.

[vstinner]

This issue prevents to remove ABC aliases from the collections module in Python 3.9: https://bugs.python.org/issue37324

[justinmayer]

Now that Python 3.8 has been released, I imagine the urgency for releasing a new version to PyPI has become somewhat elevated.

As a side note, this tendency for package releases to lag behind master is one that I have personally encountered dozens of times... including when the fault is entirely my own, in projects that I maintain! It's a shame because it means there are features and bug fixes in master that nearly nobody is benefiting from, and all because publishing new releases to PyPI is just cumbersome enough to prevent maintainers from prioritizing it. (And once again, I'm including myself in that group.)

I recently solved this problem by creating AutoPub, an open-source project that helps automate package releases on PR merge, which I recently announced during my EuroPython talk a few months ago in Basel, Switzerland. Rather than explain its many benefits here, you can read more about them on the AutoPub project page.

Since the announcement last month, I've added AutoPub to several projects I maintain:

• Pelican — PR adding AutoPub
• django-elevate — PR adding AutoPub
• django-autoslug — PR adding AutoPub

... and, of course, AutoPub releases itself via AutoPub.

As a maintainer, I have been thrilled with the results. I would be happy to submit a PR to this repository that automates package releases via AutoPub and Travis, assuming that would be of interest. What do you think, @gsnedders ?

[vstinner]

https://bugs.python.org/issue37324 has been fixed: collections ABC aliases have been removed from Python 3.9. As a consequence, html5lib is no longer compatible with Python 3.9.

How can we help you to get a new release?

[vstinner]

The issue broke pyperformance benchmark suite which has a benchmark on html5lib:
https://bugs.python.org/issue38739

[hugovk]

I've reviewed some PRs and left some comments on others, and made #430 which should help make releasing easier.

(Although I've just realised this is similar to Justin's suggestion so don't mean to step on any toes! #419 (comment))

Also, perhaps a transfer to JazzBand or the PSF may help unblock some of the more basic maintenance tasks such as releasing?

• https://jazzband.co/
• https://github.com/psf

The collections issue outlined by @vstinner currently is causing tools such as poetry for dependency management to not be able to be used on Python3.9 as per python-poetry/poetry#1733, which will block many projects from being able to maintain support for newer python versions unless an alternative to HTML5LIB can be found currently, which would be most unfortunate...

[vstinner]

I contacted @jgraham and @gsnedders by email to see how I can help them to publish a new release.

[dimaqq]

@vstinner did you hear back from @jgraham or @gsnedders perhaps?

Otherwise, if all what's needed is to fork a repo and publish under a different pypi name, then that should not be a big problem :)