Nicolas Chauvat wrote:
Do you really think every single Python package in PyPI deserves to be packaged for every distribution? I don't. How do I make a difference? When I need something I download it. When I find it really useful and plan on using it I package it. Many others are behaving in the same way and the result is "apt-cache search python".
This is narrow-minded. I understand your POV, I really do (I use a debian-based system myself, and hate the way software installation works on any other system), but what you are saying cannot work in a general manner. For example, installing from sources on most other systems is frowned upon, and rightfully so, because it is even more complicated to do than on a decent linux system. It is painful because either the OS makes it terribly difficult (windows), or because you have antique/not well supported toolsets (old Solaris, etc...). If you mainly use only one OS, you just can't understand the pain. I am not saying that python plugins must be THE deployment system, but that it has to be one system, because plugins systems are as pervasive on other OS as .deb are on debian. So we should think about what kind of things python core can provide to help other tools to either build "native" packages or eggs, and not having a big pile of code which mix everything. As Matthias Klose mentioned earlier, a lot of those formats share common requirements. We should talk about those instead of saying my package is bigger than yours.
As usual "user != developer". For someone not using Debian: just be happy with whatever tool you choose to use. For someone not an experienced Debian developer: just wait for someone to do the work you want to benefit from, or learn to do it yourself and get it done.
And how do you distribute new versions of your package ? You wait for debian to package it correctly ? For fast-moving packages, debian are not the ultimate solution, far from it. I mean, it is not like OpenSuse build service, Ubuntu ppa systems came from nowhere. There is a need for softwares developers to distribute themselves the software for newer versions, and in that case, the native system (at least used "officialy") simply is not appropriate. cheers, David