(My question isn't really about Django. It's about alternative http ports. I just happen to know Django is a relatively famous application that uses 8000 by default, so it's illustrative.)

I have a dev server in the wild that we occasionally need to run multiple httpd services on on different ports. When I needed to stand a third service up and we were already using ports 80 and 8080, I discovered our security team has locked port 8000 access from the Internet. I recognize that port 80 is the standard http port, and 8080 is commonly http_alt, but I'd like to make the case to our security team to open 8000 as well. In order to make that case, I hope the answer to this question can provide me with a reasonable argument for using port 8000 over 8080 in some case.

Or was it just a random choice with no meaning?