Python 3.8 reached its EOL

[stanislavlevin]

According to Python life cycle:

As of 2024-10-07, 3.8 has reached the end-of-life phase of its release cycle. 3.8.20 was the final security release. The codebase for 3.8 is now frozen and no further updates will be provided nor issues of any kind will be accepted on the bug tracker.

See for details:
https://devguide.python.org/versions/
https://peps.python.org/pep-0569/

Github Actions ( setup-python and underlying python-versions) in its turn will probably drop support for Python EOL versions:
actions/python-versions#317

Some tests dependencies of this project already moved from Python 3.8.
For example, setuptools, this leads to tests failures against that version of Python.

=================================== FAILURES ===================================
________ test_build_and_install_in_tree_backends[setuptools.build_meta] ________

virt_env_installer = namespace(bin_name='bin', bin_path='/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/venv/bin', cfg_path...in_tree0/venv/include', prompt='(venv) ', python_dir='/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/bin', python_exe='python')
git_tree = PosixPath('/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/setuptools')
install_build_deps = <function install_build_deps.<locals>._install_build_deps at 0x7ff4686a15e0>
destdir = PosixPath('/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/destdir')
normalized_name = 'setuptools'

...

>               raise RuntimeError(err_msg) from None
E               RuntimeError: get_requires_for_build_wheel failed
E               
E               Captured stdout:
E               
E               INFO     : Calling hook get_requires_for_build_wheel in subprocess
E               INFO     : Build backend: setuptools.build_meta
E               INFO     : In-tree backend paths: .
E               
E               
E               Captured stderr:
E               
E               Traceback (most recent call last):
E                 File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pyproject_installer/lib/backend_helper/backend_caller.py", line 200, in <module>
E                   main(sys.argv[1:])
E                 File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pyproject_installer/lib/backend_helper/backend_caller.py", line 187, in main
E                   hook_result = call_hook(
E                 File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pyproject_installer/lib/backend_helper/backend_caller.py", line 146, in call_hook
E                   hook_obj = backend_object(backend, backend_path=backend_path)
E                 File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pyproject_installer/lib/backend_helper/backend_caller.py", line 37, in backend_object
E                   backend_obj = import_module(module_path)
E                 File "/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/importlib/__init__.py", line 127, in import_module
E                   return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1014, in _gcd_import
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 991, in _find_and_load
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 961, in _find_and_load_unlocked
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1014, in _gcd_import
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 991, in _find_and_load
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 975, in _find_and_load_unlocked
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 671, in _load_unlocked
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 843, in exec_module
E                 File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
E                 File "/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/setuptools/./setuptools/__init__.py", line 26, in <module>
E                   from .discovery import PackageFinder, PEP420PackageFinder
E                 File "/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/setuptools/./setuptools/discovery.py", line 52, in <module>
E                   from ._path import StrPath
E                 File "/tmp/pytest-of-runner/pytest-0/test_build_and_install_in_tree0/setuptools/./setuptools/_path.py", line 13, in <module>
E                   StrPath: TypeAlias = Union[str, os.PathLike[str]]  #  Same as _typeshed.StrPath
E               TypeError: 'ABCMeta' object is not subscriptable

/opt/hostedtoolcache/Python/3.8.18/x64/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pyproject_installer/lib/build_backend.py:279: RuntimeError

pypa/setuptools#4722