No, but anyone that has published an Electron app does. Oh, and Chrome itself needs to be updated -- only on what, millions of machines? V8 is bundled with Chrome -- you know, kind of like a PyInstaller app bundles Python ;-)

Chris A: I ask you to let this go -- Python can be used for many different kinds of application development. And those different use cases have different needs. And Desktop GUI applications, in particular, really, really, do need a "bundling" system -- at least on the Mac and Windows.

It's clear that that's not the realm you work in, which is fine, and as more and more stuff moves to the Web, there is less need for Desktop apps, but the need is still there, and PyInstaller, and Py2app and py2exe before it (and still) are absolutely critical tools in that space.

I've been using Python for over twenty years, and discovering py2exe and py2app way back then made it possible for me to deliver multiple products that I simply could not have done without them. (and still do). Our users have NO IDEA that they are built with Python, and that's perfect -- they can just download, install, and have a working, native, desktop app. And it will keep working, even when their sysadmin tells them they can't have Python 2 installed anymore because it's no  longer maintained.

TL;DR:

- Python bundling systems are a very useful tool.

- They are NOT an "attractive nuisance"

All that being said, I don't think pyInstaller is a candidate for the stdlib, for all the other reasons people have given in this thread.

- CHB

PS: IANAL, but it's probably not an option anyway. It's GPL, and can only be re-licensed if ALL the copyright holders, potentially any that have contributed code without relinquishing copyright, can agree, and that's a pretty impossible task for a community project.

At the very least, yould need all of:

Copyright (c) 2010-2020, PyInstaller Development Team
Copyright (c) 2005-2009, Giovanni Bajo
Based on previous work under copyright (c) 2002 McMillan Enterprises, Inc.

to agree.