Merge pull request #56197 from pranve/cherrypick-60d5bfbf0241e0026788…

…4b0dc1723bbdfee1806a11-on-r2.7

Add upper bound to protobuf in setup.py.

tensorflow/tools/pip_package/setup.py

@@ -88,7 +88,14 @@
     'h5py >= 2.9.0', # capped since 3.3.0 lacks py3.6
     'keras_preprocessing >= 1.1.1', # 1.1.0 needs tensorflow==1.7
     'opt_einsum >= 2.3.2', # sphinx pin not removed up til 3.3.0 release
-    'protobuf >= 3.9.2',
+    # TODO(b/182876485): Protobuf 3.20 results in linker errors on Windows
+    # Protobuf 4.0 is binary incompatible with what C++ TF uses.
+    # We need ~1 quarter to update properly.
+    # See also: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/53234
+    # See also: https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/issues/9954
+    # See also: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/56077
+    # This is a temporary patch for now, to patch previous TF releases.
+    'protobuf >= 3.9.2, < 3.20',
     'six >= 1.12.0',
     'termcolor >= 1.1.0',
     'typing_extensions >= 3.6.6',