DEP: Drop support for Python 3.8

[stefan6419846]

Python 3.8 is EOL since 2024-10-07, id est for about three months. On 2025-02-05, Dependabot might stop updating critical pinned dependencies as per https://github.blog/changelog/2025-01-06-closing-down-notice-dependabot-will-no-longer-support-python-version-3-8/:

On February 5th, 2025, Dependabot will end support for Python version 3.8, which has reached its end-of-life. If you continue to use Python version 3.8, there’s a risk that Dependabot will not create pull requests to update dependencies. To prevent this from happening, please update to a supported release of Python.

In the past, we usually supported EOL Python versions for about one further year, although we have no strong policy for this. (To match the corresponding Ubuntu release cycle, we would have to wait until April 2025 when Ubuntu 20.04 shipping Python 3.8 is going EOL for example.)

[pubpub-zz]

Do you know if there has been such a "quick" support drop on the previous version ?

[stefan6419846]

The last time, both Python 3.6 and 3.7 where deprecated together on 2023-08-17. Python 3.7 went EOL on 2023-06-27. (Source: https://github.blog/changelog/2023-08-02-deprecation-notice-dependabot-to-drop-support-for-python-3-6-and-3-7/)

[j-t-1]

.github/workflows/github-ci.yaml:

include:
  - python-version: "3.8"
    use-crypto-lib: "pycryptodome"
  - python-version: "3.8"
    use-crypto-lib: "none"

Could move this to 3.13, not 3.9?

Would only really effect the "pycryptodome" case, since the "none" case is a subset of the standard "cryptography" cases.

Advantages are forward looking and maybe (???) faster.

[stefan6419846]

since the "none" case is a subset of the standard "cryptography" cases.

I do not get this. Could you please elaborate?

For moving this to Python 3.13: I do not think that this has substantial benefits for now. Speed should not really matter here, especially since I have seen Python 3.13 having a rather negative impact on the speed of some code (although not necessarily in our cases).