Hello here's a detailed proposal for the setup.cfg format. I've included all remarks, and tried to make the syntax as simple as possible. I've dropped the long_description stuff and the template language stuff. (people can do it as a post-release process) A/ Config file structure: """ [setup] foo: bar conditional-sections: one, two [one] condition: test [two] condition: test """ 2/ Execution environment: python_version = '%s.%s' % (sys.version_info[0], sys.version_info[1]) os_name = os.name platform = sys.platform uname = os.uname() python_version_info = sys.version_info 3/ Grammar: comp_op: '<'|'>'|'=='|'>='|'<='|'<>'|'!='|'in'|'not' 'in'|'is'|'is' 'not' comparison: expr (comp_op expr)* expr: 'python_version'|'python_version_info'|'os_name'|'uname'|'platform'|STRING test: or_test or_test: and_test ('or' and_test)* and_test: not_test ('and' not_test)* not_test: 'not' not_test | comparison 4/ Process distutils will interpret [setup] and act upon, to fill the Distribution object and its metadata attribute object. It will look only for Metadata fields and ignores the others. In case an option is passed in setup.py, it overrides the one in setup.cfg. Let me know if it's good enough. I won't write a PEP for this change, and I will just push it for information at python-dev as soon as I get enough +1 :) Regards Tarek -- Tarek Ziadé | http://ziade.org | オープンソースの岩！