On Friday, June 22, 2012 at 12:54 PM, Alexandre Zani wrote:

Key distribution is the real issue though. If there isn't a key

distribution infrastructure in place, we might as well not bother with

signatures. PyPI could issue x509 certs to packagers. You wouldn't be

able to verify that the name given is accurate, but you would be able

to verify that all packages with the same listed author are actually

by that author.

I've been sketching out ideas for key distribution, but it's very much

a chicken and egg problem, very few people sign their packages (because

nothing uses it currently), and nobody is motivated to work on infrastructure

or tooling because no one signs their packages.