In python2.5, elementtree is included with python itself, as xml.etreeElementTree (http://docs.python.org/lib/module-xml.etree.ElementTree.html). Because of this, the elementtree package has not included python2.5 support since 1.2.6-8 (see changelog). This is needlessly breaking a lot of old code. I'd like to reverse that decision, and set the elementtree package to work with python2.5
In particular:
a) old packages which use elementtree are breaking on Ubuntu (e.g. see bug #84145 and bug #83639). Not such a big problem(we can fix these as they crop up)
b) More importantly, we will also be breaking a lot of user-scripts (see bug #84687)
For reference, at least the following packages are likely to be affected. If we aren't going to install elementtree for python2.5, these will need to be manually checked/fixed:
$ apt-cache rdepends python-elementtree
python-elementtree
Reverse Depends:
python-turbogears
python-kid
python-jtoolkit
python-elementtidy
python-dogtail
python-celementtree
pyste
exaile
python-qt4
In addition, there are several other packages which indirectly depend on python-elementtree.
Installing for python2.5 isn't going to cause much trouble for anybody. The only people installing it will be those with old code, and a significant number of them will want to use it with python2.5
Subscribing Matthias, as it's a python-related judgment call deciding what to do about this bug.