Paul Boddie wrote: > On 26 Aug, 17:48, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+n...@snipabacken.se> wrote: >> >> Well, if you are thinking about Debian Linux, it's not as much >> "ripping out" as "splitting into a separate package with a non-obvious >> name". Annoying at times, but hardly an atrocity. > > Indeed. Having seen two packages today which insisted on setuptools, > neither really needing it, and with one actively trying to download > stuff from the Internet (fifteen seconds warning - how generous!) when > running setup.py, it seems to me that it isn't the distribution > packagers who need to be re-thinking how they install Python software. > > Generally, distributions have to manage huge amounts of software and > uphold reasonable policies without creating unnecessary maintenance. > Sadly, until very recently (and I'm still not entirely sure if there's > really been an attitude change) the Pythonic packaging brigade has > refused to even consider the needs of one of the biggest groups of > consumers of the upstream code. Consequently, distributions will > always devise different ways of storing installed Python software, > documentation and resources, mostly because the Pythonic tools have > been deficient, particularly in the management of the latter > categories.
You mean it's the problem of the python packaging that it can't deal with RPMs, debs, tgzs, OSX bundles, MSIs and <put-in-the-next-big-packaging-thing-here>? Multiplied by the various packaging philosophies the respective distros build based on these have? I'm a Python-developer. I develop libraries and tools for Python, and want others to be able to install these - as I want to install things *other* python developers created. Setuptools let's me do that (most of the time. And I mean most). If somebody thinks he wants to include these in whatever form he prefers - fine with me. But it's hardly *my* problem, or that of the Python world in general, to fulfill the requirements some other people come up with. Diez -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
