All Linux distributions and MacOS ship with Python, and many users of Python stick to the OS-provided version without installing the latest and greatest on their own.
For example, they might only upgrade major Python versions (3.x) once they migrate from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS or even directly four years to 20.04 LTS. Whichever Python version is available by default there becomes the next Python LTS for them.
For now, all versions since 3.4 receive occasional security and bug fixes to make all of them are "stable". New features are only adopted with a major version (3.x) bump.
I have not heard of the Python community complaining about this being too much work - after all improvement work is only done in the latest version, old versions just get backported bug fixes.
Comments
All Linux distributions and MacOS ship with Python, and many users of Python stick to the OS-provided version without installing the latest and greatest on their own.
For example, they might only upgrade major Python versions (3.x) once they migrate from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS or even directly four years to 20.04 LTS. Whichever Python version is available by default there becomes the next Python LTS for them.
For now, all versions since 3.4 receive occasional security and bug fixes to make all of them are "stable". New features are only adopted with a major version (3.x) bump.
I have not heard of the Python community complaining about this being too much work - after all improvement work is only done in the latest version, old versions just get backported bug fixes.