I've been looking at the ctypes-based Python bindings. They're barely maintained; the only changes in the last two years seem to have been minor tweaks to make the tests run. I'm also not aware of anyone using them, or any packager bundling them.
This was an interesting experiment, but I think it's time to face the fact that it failed. If there are no objections, I propose to remove the ctypes-based bindings from trunk (including all related configury and build system support) before creating the 1.9 branch. -- Brane
