I apologize if this question is misplaced, I wasn't sure which list to post it in.

I'm working on a distributed computing project (PyMW and BOINC) where we are sending Python scripts to client machines. Currently, we make two very unlikely assumptions: that Python 2.5 is installed and that the interpreter is available on the PATH.

We are looking at our options to remove this assumption and the two most likely are redistributing the entire Python installation (for each supported platform) and embedding the interpreter in a custom executable and sending select parts of the standard library with it (to reduce size).

It seems like we would have to pre-compile for each different platform, which is a pain and sending the entire installation could be tricky. 

I am looking for alternatives, comments and suggestions. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeremy