Bump the minimum supported Python version to 3.6.8

jchampio · jchampio · commit 45363fca6372 · 2025-04-29T13:04:19.000-07:00
Python 3.2 is no longer tested by the buildfarm, and there are only a handful of buildfarm animals running versions older than 3.6, which itself went end-of-life in 2021. Python 3.6.8 is the default version shipped in RHEL8, so that seems like a reasonable baseline for PG18. Now that we use the Python Limited API as of 0793ab8, older versions of Python should continue functioning for users of PL/Python in particular, so soften the language from "required" to "supported". Wording by Tom Lane. Separate from the review of the patch itself, several people provided input on the choice of cutoff: Christoph Berg, Devrim Gündüz, Florents Tselai, Jelte Fennema-Nio, and Renan Alves Fonseca. Thank you! Suggested-by: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> Reviewed-by: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/16098.1745079444%40sss.pgh.pa.us
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/installation.sgml
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@
       language, you need a <productname>Python</productname>
       installation with the header files and
       the <application>sysconfig</application> module.  The minimum
-      required version is <productname>Python</productname> 3.2.
+      supported version is <productname>Python</productname> 3.6.8.
      </para>
 
      <para>
