Suggest removal of the mod_python command

[msquire]

I discovered a mod_python command installed in /usr/bin and that it was a bit broken. I started to fix it to work with python 3.12 and recent versions of apache2 (the attached diff) but found that it depended on python's execfile() function which is a relic of python 2 - it was removed in python 3.0. Since it could never have worked properly with python 3, and no one has complained about it, I wonder if it might be better just to remove it altogether.

If you do want to keep it the attached diff got it working again for me - though I think it could probably do with a bit more work.

What do you think?

fix_mod_python_cmd.diff.gz

[grisha]

I'm not ready to concede that it cannot be made to work with python 3 :)

I'll keep this issue around maybe some day we'll get it fixed or determine that it should be deprecated.

[msquire]

Oh, it can definitely be made to work with python 3. The patch I attached fixes that :) Or at least it "fixed it for me" on my particular setup (vanilla Ubuntu noble installation). I didn't spend any more time improving it beyond compatibility fixes because I wasn't sure if it would remain.

The question was only how useful the script is in practice if no one's noticed it was broken in python 3. I don't know if its a case of people not using it because it's broken, or people not noticing it's broken because they aren't using it.

Anyway, you are probably right to keep it because no doubt someone somewhere is using it and will complain if it disappears.