I haven't much time, will add additonal information later.

Okay I should've waited for my test before I edited it. So irc is not compatible anymore with Python 2.6. Should we remove it from the script dependencies when under Python 2.6?

Okay forcing irc<10.0 when in Python 2.6 just delegates the problem to jaraco.ui: https://travis-ci.org/xZise/pywikibot-core/jobs/52116400 :(

Can we go back to an earlier version that does support py2.6 , or fix the bugs in jaraco.text? (it appears to be a new repo https://bitbucket.org/jaraco/jaraco.text/history-node/205f9c5bf573/setup.py?at=default , so they may be interested in py2.6 support)

Other options/workarounds at least until the bugs in py2.6 support are fixed:

• flag 'irc' as a py2.7+ component of pywikibot,
• dont include irc in the PYSETUP_TEST_EXTRAS=1 builds

Regarding “Unbreak now!” I fear there are other problems too: https://travis-ci.org/xZise/pywikibot-core/jobs/52121307 That version is not installing IRC (like one of your suggestions).

I mean I could try installing irc on Python 2.6 until I got a version that works (which would then look something like this), although what if it's always installing the newest dependencies which are not compatible?

Okay I'm running a new test now after I tested through the versions. Version 9, which was the last version officially compatible with Python 2.6, couldn't be installed because of:

File "/tmp/pip_build_xzise/jaraco.functools/setup.py", line 13
  needs_pytest = {'pytest', 'test'}.intersection(sys.argv)
                          ^

Then the next older version was 8.9.1 which is incompatible for the same reason. I guess along with version 10 of irc they dropped the support in all their utility libraries and versions before 8.9.1 didn't use them. Although I was able to install 8.9 and adding a dependency in a -.-.1 version seems unlikely.

Change 193098 had a related patch set uploaded (by XZise):
[FIX] Use IRC before v10 in Python 2.6

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/193098

Change 193098 merged by jenkins-bot:
[FIX] Use IRC before v10 in Python 2.6

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/193098

@XZise, @jayvdb: What is left to do here after the patch has been merged? Any news?
This task has been "Unbreak now" priority for six weeks, is that priority still realistic?