Éric Araujo <merwok <at> netwok.org> writes:
Besides, putting data files in a Python package is held very poorly by some (mostly people following the File Hierarchy Standard), and in distutils2/packaging, we (will) have a resources system that’s as convenient for users and more flexible for OS packagers. Using __file__ for more than information on the module is frowned upon for other reasons anyway (I talked about a Debian developer about this one day but forgot), so I think the limitation is okay.
The FHS does not apply in all scenarios - not all Python code is deployed/packaged at system level. For example, plug-ins (such as Django apps) are often not meant to be installed by a system-level packager. This might also be true in scenarios where Python is embedded into some other application. It's really useful to be able to co-locate packages with their data (e.g. in a zip file) and I don't think all instances of putting data files in a package are to be frowned upon. Regards, Vinay Sajip