Ralf, Thanks for doing all this!
Building binaries for releases is currently quite complex and time-consuming.
It sure would be nice to clean that up. For OS X we need two different machines, because we still
provide binaries for OS X 10.5 and PPC machines. I propose to not do this anymore. It doesn't mean we completely drop support for 10.5 and PPC, just that we don't produce binaries. PPC was phased out in 2006 and OS X 10.6 came out in 2009, so there can't be a lot of demand for it (and the download stats at http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.7.1/ confirm this).
Furthermore I propose to not provide 2.6 binaries anymore. Downloads of 2.6 OS X binaries were <5% of the 2.7 ones. We did the same with 2.4 for a long time - support it but no binaries.
Adding 2.6 is not a huge deal, but I agree -- what's the point? And it really is time to drop PPC an 10.5, though I'd be interested to see if anyone IS still using it.
So what we'd have left at the moment is only the 64-bit/32-bit universal binary for 10.6 and up. What we finally need to add is 3.x OS X binaries. We can make an attempt to build these on 10.8 - since we have access to a hosted 10.8 Mac Mini it would allow all devs to easily do a release (leaving aside the Windows issue). If anyone has tried the 10.6 SDK on 10.8 and knows if it actually works, that would be helpful.
haven't tried it yet, but it should be doable -- if a pain and a laudable goal.
Any concerns, objections?
nope -- good plan. Note that I am trying to unify some of this binary building -- the same techniques used for matplotlib and useful for other packages, too (numpy/scipy for sure), but also PIL, netCDF, who knows what? I'll post here when I get a little further and there is something for others to look at and/or contribute to. -Chris -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov