Stop using `distutils.version.LooseVersion`

[jwodder]

Distutils was officially deprecated in Python 3.10 and will be removed from the standard library completely in 3.12. Most references to it were removed from Datalad by #6113, but some uses of distutils.version.LooseVersion remain, and there is no clear alternative that handles all use-cases.

[yarikoptic]

FWIW Debian build of 0.17.0 even fails now with following warnings turned to errors

DeprecationWarning: The distutils package is deprecated and slated for removal in Python 3.12. Use setuptools or check PEP 632 for potential alternatives

I am a little surprised we do not observe that elsewhere, even while trying to fix testing and do test against 3.10 in #6803

[effigies]

FWIW we found use cases in Nipype where looseversion was needed, as packaging.version.Version is for PEP-440 versions only, and packaging.version.LegacyVersion is being deprecated. Rather than try to come up with something else that would be close enough, I just pulled LooseVersion into its own package and hacked it to compare seamlessly with distutils.version.LooseVersion: https://pypi.org/project/looseversion/

[mih]

Wonderful! Thx!

[yarikoptic]

awesome! thank you @effigies! Now we would just need to package it for debian and conda-forge. @jwodder - could you please create conda-forge recipe for https://pypi.org/project/looseversion/ ?

[effigies]

It's on conda-forge. https://github.com/conda-forge/looseversion-feedstock

[yarikoptic]

oh lovely -- less work for us. I guess we can switch to use it overall for 0.18 series (0.17 was just released). python 3.12 is to be released in 2023-10 so we still have some time ;)

edit: For Debian package -- for now just submitted RFP (request for packaging) issue https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1014890 ;)

[yarikoptic-gitmate]

Issue fixed in 0.18.0