The load_entry_point needs the dist name because of how it's implemented - it defers to the distribution instance. AFAICT there are no actual checks.
def load_entry_point(dist, group, name): """Return `name` entry point of `group` for `dist` or raise ImportError""" return get_distribution(dist).load_entry_point(group, name)
it checks the version. you get this. I have pip-1.5dev1 in this case, but a script wrapper referencing 1.4rc5 (pip)qwcode@qwcode:~/p/pypa/pip$ pip --version Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/qwcode/.qwdev/pip/bin/pip", line 5, in <module> from pkg_resources import load_entry_point File "/home/qwcode/.qwdev/pip/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 3011, in <module> parse_requirements(__requires__), Environment() File "/home/qwcode/.qwdev/pip/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 626, in resolve raise DistributionNotFound(req) pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==1.4rc5