Although Kodi 21 Omega was recently released and that was excellent news, it is obvious that not everything is going to be joy for the Kodi community. Now the team in charge of the program reveals from its website that they have removed support for one of the versions of the program. Another one, actually, since not too long ago another one also became obsolete. If you still have it installed, it is recommended that you stop using it.
It is the law of life. With the appearance of new versions of the most famous programs, it is obvious that previous versions end up becoming obsolete. However, sometimes you can expect that the support you receive from your developers will be greater. In the case of Kodi, the team in charge of the program has just announced the end of one of its most legendary editions.
End of support for Leia
The version of the program that has been permanently discontinued is Kodi Leia, which for technical reasons was no longer in the plans to maintain with active support. From Kodi they remember that their policy involves supporting both the current version of Kodi, in this case the v21 Omega edition, and the two previous versions.
That means that Kodi v19 Matrix and Kodi v20 Nexus are still safe, but Kodi v18 Leia joins the long list of abandoned versions that also consists of editions like Kodi v17 Krypton, Kodi v16 Jarvis or Kodi v15 Isengard. It is not something that is traumatic given what we have seen, but the end of support for Leia also implies that Kodi abandons something else.
It’s goodbye to Python 2
Kodi v18 Leia, the latest version of which was released in October 2020 with the v18.9 update, was the last version of the program that still had full support for Python 2. As of the release of Kodi Matrix, the team leading the program decided to update to use the Python 3 language, which marked a before and after in the way they worked on the tool. This was an understandable move considering that Python 2 was already abandoned as well and, without updates to ensure security, there was no reason to continue using it.
But what does all this mean? As Kodi mentions, developers and users alike have to be aware that, with the abandonment of Kodi Leia, the support they gave to Python 2 also ends. Therefore, from now on no more addon updates with Python will be accepted 2 and, in addition to this, the Leia repo will also be obsolete.
Therefore, users who have Kodi Leia will be able to continue accessing the repo to make the installations they need or believe are relevant. But there will be no updates, changes, improvements or anything else, not even for security reasons. Any updates issued will have to be for Python 3, the language used in all versions of Kodi after Leia. The change, although it will possibly affect some people to some extent, will have very beneficial consequences for the community and for members of the Kodi team.
Thus, they mention that all the efforts that were being invested right now in monitoring and analyzing add-on updates with Python 2 can be redirected to the technology currently used. Not only will it be a more logical way to move forward, but they believe this will speed up the work they have to do with addons for supported versions of Kodi. Therefore, it will be something positive and it is most likely that, in a short time, the changes will be noticed.
At Kodi they end up appreciating the importance that Python 2 has had in the history of their program, but they know that they have to keep looking forward. Users still using Kodi Leia should update to a later version of the software, ideally Kodi Omega. This will guarantee the best performance, the greatest compatibility and the receipt of updates or security patches with maximum efficiency.
