Removing support for Python 3.6 (even 3.7?) this cycle (for upcoming hg-6.9)

[Raphaël Gomès]

Hi all,

The question of removing support for Python 3.6 (and to a lesser extent 
3.7) is being raised more and more, while the burden of supporting it is 
increasing.

Does anyone still care about Python 3.6 or even Python 3.7? Both 
versions have been EOL for a while (2021-12-23 and 2023-06-27 
respectively), and distros/users seem to largely have jumped to much 
more recent versions. For instance, Centos 7 and 8 are EOL and the 
latter already had 3.9, Rocky Linux 8 has 3.6, 3.8, 3.9, 3.11 and 3.12.

IMO the limited maintenance burden of general usage that the 
contributors can afford has been reached for 3.6 and probably 3.7.

I - along with other frequent contributors - would be *very happy* to 
get rid of 3.6 and 3.7 in one fell swoop, considering that 3.8 will be 
EOL in November of this year, which is already close.

If nobody says anything, I suggest that support for 3.6 and 3.7 be 
removed during this cycle, which is for the upcoming Mercurial 6.9.

Please tell us what you think,
Raphaël