How well can IDLE be used without agreeing to ActiveState's ActiveTcl 8.6 license?

Question

I am using IDLE for Python 3.2.5 on MAC OS 10.9, and when I open IDLE, it says

WARNING: The version of Tcl/Tk (8.5.9) in use may be unstable. Visit http://www.python.org/download/mac/tcltk/ for current information.

When I go to that site, the OS X 10.9 instructions direct me to install ActiveTcl from ActiveState. When I click on the bit Download button near the top right, it downloads a .dmg with a license file that includes the following: "ACTIVESTATE reserves the right to change this Agreement at any time, which change shall be effective immediately upon the posting on ACTIVESTATE'S website ...". Accordingly, I will not be installing that program from ActiveState.

Is there any other way to address the possible stability issue(s)? (Such a way may include getting a version of Tcl/Tk from somewhere other than ActiveState, and/or changing to a different version of IDLE.)

Answer 1

If you don't care to be bound by the ActiveState license, you could try to build a framework build of Tcl 8.5 and Tk 8.5 yourself; be aware, though, that for OS X 10.9 you'll need to apply a patch from Tk trunk to the most recent Tk release, 8.5.15. You could also use a Python from MacPorts which uses its own version of Tk and has the above patch. Or you could risk using the Apple-supplied Tk in 10.9 and be really careful about what you type so that it doesn't crash with no chance at recovery. In future releases, the plan is for the python.org OS X installers to install their own version of Tcl/Tk if necessary.

Also note that the Python you are using is linked with Tk 8.5. Installing a newer version of Tk 8.6 won't make any difference; you need to install a newer version of Tk 8.5.

By the way, Python 3.2.5 is obsolete and is no longer actively supported. Consider installing a current Python 3 version, at the moment, 3.3.3. Come to think of it, if you are using the python.org 3.2.5 64-bit OS X version, you'll very likely to run into a 10.9 crash problem when using the interpreter interactively. This problem is fixed in 3.3.3 (and 2.7.6).