New PEP 546: Backport MemoryBIO to Python 2.7 (#272)

* New PEP 546: Backport MemoryBIO to Python 2.7

* PEP 546: Alex Gaynor's review

* PEP 546: Nick Coghlan's review: ensurepip

* PEP 546: new Nick Coghlan's review

pep-0546.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+PEP: 546
+Title: Backport ssl.MemoryBIO and ssl.SSLObject to Python 2.7
+Version: $Revision$
+Last-Modified: $Date$
+Author: Victor Stinner <victor.stinner@gmail.com>,
+Status: Draft
+Type: Standards Track
+Content-Type: text/x-rst
+Created: 30-May-2017
+
+
+Abstract
+========
+
+Backport ssl.MemoryBIO and ssl.SSLObject classes from Python 3 to Python
+2.7 to enhance the overall security of Python 2.7.
+
+
+Rationale
+=========
+
+While Python 2.7 is getting closer to its end-of-line (scheduled for
+2020), it is still used on production and the Python community is still
+responsible for its security. And to facilitate the future adoption of
+:pep:`543`, which will improve security for Python3 users.
+
+This PEP does NOT propose a general exception for backporting new
+features to Python 2.7 - every new feature proposed for backporting will
+still need to be justified independently. In particular, it will need to
+be explained why relying on an independently updated backport on the
+Python Package Index instead is not an acceptable solution.
+
+
+PEP 543
+-------
+
+The :pep:`543` defines a new TLS API for Python which would enhance the
+Python security: give access to the root certificate authorities on
+Windows and macOS by using native APIs, instead of OpenSSL. A side effect
+is that it gives access to certificates installed locally by system
+administrators, allowing to use "company certificates" without having to
+modify each Python application and so validate correctly TLS
+certificates (instead of having to ignore or bypass the TLS certificate
+validation).
+
+For practical reasons, Cory Benfield would like to first implement an
+I/O-less class similar to ssl.MemoryBIO and ssl.SSLObject for the
+:pep:`543`, and provide a second class based on the first one to use
+sockets or file descriptors.  This design would help to structure the code
+to support more backends and simplify testing and auditing. Later,
+optimized classes using directly sockets or file descriptors may be
+added for performance.
+
+While the :pep:`543` defines an API, the PEP would only make sense if it
+comes with at least one complete and good implementation. The first
+implementation will be based on the ``ssl`` module of the Python
+standard library.
+
+In a perfect world, all applications would already run on Python 3 since
+Python 3.0 was released. In practice, many applications still run on
+production on top of Python 2.7. To make the new TLS API more widely
+used, it should be usable on all Python versions currently supported:
+Python 2.7, 3.5, 3.6. Otherwise, some applications would have to wait
+until they drop Python 2 support to be able to use the new TLS API.
+
+Delaying adoption of the PEP 543 API means delaying the adoption for
+security improvements for Python 3 users as well.
+
+
+requests, pip and ensurepip
+---------------------------
+
+There are plans afoot to look at moving Requests to a more event-loop-y
+model, and doing so basically mandates a MemoryBIO. In the absence of a
+Python 2.7 backport, Requests is required to basically use the same
+solution that Twisted currently does: namely, a mandatory dependency on
+`pyOpenSSL <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyOpenSSL>`_.
+
+The `pip <https://pip.pypa.io/>`_ program has to embed all its
+dependencies for pratical reason. Since pip depends on requests, it means
+that it would have to embed a copy of pyOpenSSL. That would imply
+usability pain to install pip. Currently, pip doesn't support embedding
+C extensions which must be compiled on each platform and so require a C
+compiler.
+
+Since Python 2.7.9, Python embeds a copy of pip both for default
+installation and for use in virtual environments: the new ``ensurepip``
+module. If pip ends up bundling PyOpenSSL, then Python will end up
+bundling PyOpenSSL. Only backporting ``ssl.MemoryBIO`` and
+``ssl.SSLObject`` would avoid to have to embed pyOpenSSL to only include
+the strict minimum features required by requests and fix the bootstrap
+issue (python -> ensurepip -> pip -> requests -> MemoryBIO).
+
+
+Changes
+=======
+
+Add ``MemoryBIO`` and ``SSLObject`` classes to the ``ssl`` module of
+Python 2.7.
+
+The code will be backported and adapted from the master branch
+(Python 3).
+
+The backport also significantly reduced the size of the Python 2/Python
+3 difference of the ``_ssl`` module, which make maintenance easier.
+
+
+Links
+=====
+
+* :pep:`543`
+* `[backport] ssl.MemoryBIO
+  <https://bugs.python.org/issue22559>`_: Implementation of this PEP
+  written by Alex Gaynor (first version written at October 2014)
+* :pep:`466`
+
+
+Discussions
+===========
+
+* `[Python-Dev] Backport ssl.MemoryBIO on Python 2.7?
+  <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2017-May/147981.html>`_
+  (May 2017)
+
+
+Copyright
+=========
+
+This document has been placed in the public domain.
+
+
+
+
+..
+   Local Variables:
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+   coding: utf-8
+   End: