Drop no-longer-needed custom changes to /usr/bin/pip*
pip >= 20 has a mechanism that replaces our pip-allow-different-versions.patch
However, we kept our patch to support users doing e.g.:
$ pip install --user --upgrade 'pip<20'
However, pip 19.3.1 (the latest <20 version) does not even operate without distutils:
(venv3.12)$ pip list
Package Version
---------- -------
pip 22.3.1
setuptools 65.5.0
(venv3.12)$ pip install --upgrade 'pip<20'
...
(venv3.12) $ pip list
Traceback (most recent call last):
File ".../venv3.12/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
from pip._internal.main import main
File ".../venv3.12/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/main.py", line 13, in <module>
from pip._internal.cli.autocompletion import autocomplete
File ".../venv3.12/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/autocompletion.py", line 11, in <module>
from pip._internal.cli.main_parser import create_main_parser
File ".../venv3.12/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/main_parser.py", line 7, in <module>
from pip._internal.cli import cmdoptions
File ".../venv3.12/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_internal/cli/cmdoptions.py", line 19, in <module>
from distutils.util import strtobool
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils'
Hence, it no longer makes any sense to keep the patch with Python 3.12.