Red Hat engineer Miro Hrončok submitted a change proposal recommending retiring Python 2.7 in Fedora 41 and dropping packages that still depend on Python 2. Python2 has exited the life cycle on January 1, 2020, CentOS7 has also exited the life cycle, and RHEL8's Python2.7 application support will also exit. Red Hat developers believe that now is the time to remove the Python2.7 package from Fedora. With the exception of PyPy, Fedora will no longer support Python2.

There are also some software packages that still rely on Python 2.7 that may also be retired during this process. They are also software packages that are not easy to maintain. The main caveat is that GIMP2 still relies on Python2... Fedora41 hopes that the long-awaited GIMP3.0 will be released in time if it finally does. But if GIMP2 remains in Fedora 41, the retirement of Python 2.7 will be postponed to Fedora 42 next year.

The Fedora change proposal explains:

"Python maintainers will no longer regularly backport security fixes to Python 2.7 in RHEL as maintenance for RHEL7 has ended and the Python 2.7 application stream in RHEL8 will be retired. We have provided this outdated package for up to 5 years past its retirement date and will continue to provide it until the end of the Fedora 40 life cycle.

We do not want this package to be deprecated because we are concerned that it will not receive the care it deserves if maintained by someone else. If there are potential maintainers interested in continuing to maintain Python 2 in Fedora after Fedora 41, they can talk to us and demonstrate their ability and willingness to maintain Python 2 by joining maintenance early.

Users who need to run applications in Python2 should do so on a platform that supports Python2. Running applications on unsupported Python is dangerous.

Developers who still need to test their software on Python 2 can use older versions of Fedora or unsupported CentOS/RHEL versions of containers."

The F41 change proposal still needs approval from the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo), but will presumably go ahead - assuming GIMP 3.0 is eventually released this summer and thus does not hinder the removal of Python 2.7.