If this helps, I am +1, and I’m sure other devs will chime in. I think the feature is useful, and I prefer 402’s way to 382’s pyp directories.
If that's the obstacle to adopting PEP 382, it would be easy to revert the PEP back to having file markers to indicate package-ness. I insist on having markers of some kind, though (IIUC, this is also what PEP 395 requires). The main problem with file markers is that a) they must not overlap across portions of a package, and b) the actual file name and content is irrelevant. a) means that package authors have to come up with some name, and b) means that the name actually doesn't matter (but the file name extension would). UUIDs would work, as would the name of the portion/distribution. I think the specific choice of name will confuse people into interpreting things in the file name that aren't really intended. Regards, Martin