[llvm] Replace distutils.version with looseversion since the former was deprecated in python 3.10 and removed in 3.12. (PR #99549)

[via llvm-commits]

dyung wrote:

> > > Reverted this as this breaks a bunch of build bots. This definitely deserves more discussion. For example, we took an alternative approach in LLDB (see #93712) which may be applicable here too?
> > 
> > 
> > @JDevlieghere did this break any of your bots other than the ones reported here? All of the ones listed here are my bots and I'm in the process of updating them.
> 
> Yes, it also broke the GreenDragon bots: https://green.lab.llvm.org/job/llvm.org/view/LLDB/ which you wouldn't be able to update yourself.

Ah, sorry about that.

> > The LLDB approach also seems to require an extra package to be installed that is not part of the default python distribution, is that really that different from the approach here?
> 
> It's not, except that maybe one could argue that packaging is maintained by a Python workgroup and has millions of users compared to this package, which seems to be maintained by a single person and has a few thousand users. More importantly though, we should have the same solution across subprojects to avoid bots and developers having to install an increasing number of arbitrary packages.

I did try to look at using the packaging package instead, but it seemed to require more work to make sure everything worked while using looseversion was a drop-in replacement that should just work with minimal changes required. I wasn't aware of the work done in GDB to try and solve a similar problem, but will look into it, thanks for pointing it out (we don't run LLDB internally). If we did want to borrow the same or a similar approach, it would make more sense if both could share the same code, so bug fixes in one would be fixed in both. Is there a way to do that in the current system?

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/pull/99549