Anticipated timeline for next release with docutils 0.22 compatibility

[jacobtylerwalls]

Hi, thanks for the dependable maintenance of this tool.

Over at Django, we bumped docutils (a runtime dependency for us) to the first version that supports Python 3.14 (0.22), which is only compatible with Sphinx@main as of #13786.

So, until the next Sphinx release we're in a spot where contributors can't solve the base and docs dependencies in the same environment.

Is Sphinx 8.3.0 or a backport with this change likely in the next weeks? If unlikely, we would know to start figuring out contributor-facing messaging about separating environments for tests and docs. We're starting to get contributors opening forum threads about it.

Don't want to be pushy, just curious to know of any estimates you might already have. Cheers!

[AA-Turner]

@jacobtylerwalls

This is unfortunate timing as I'm in the middle of a major rewrite of autodoc. It is functionally complete, but missing various nice to have bits and crucially I haven't had time to consider what/how is needed to migrate third party users of app.add_autodoc() / direct users of autodoc internals.

I have been considering as a 'temporary' solution to just restore the 8.2 code in a _legacy subpackage, but this also has drawbacks.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions or ideas I might not have considered. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only blocker to the 9.0 release.

cc @LecrisUT @sphinx-doc/developers.

A

[LecrisUT]

Why not just cherry-pick that commit in a patch release? It would be a shame to rush it with the current momentum on the autodoc rewrite.