[Catalog-sig] Extending the package meta-data with more detailed download information

[David Lyon]

On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:27:10 +0100, "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

> As mentioned in the original email, the use case is to have
> PyPI list download information for all distribution files
> of a package together with a set of details that allow automatic
> selection of a file for installation by a package manager
> tool.

That can happen already though, without extending pypi.

> PyPI currently only provides limited details for each uploaded
> file and doesn't support referencing files hosted on other
> servers at all.
> 
> I'd like to extend PyPI to also provide support for listing
> files on other servers as well as making it possible for
> the package manager tools to automatically select the right
> installation file for the intended target platform.

That's complex.

easy_install and pip already do this. So to get that you
only have to use one of those tools.

Wholistically, it would be much better to improve pypi and
continue not to support download links to other servers.

It isn't unreasonable imo for pypi to hold all the good
packages. And for users to be able to get them there.

> At eGenix we often find that users download and install the
> wrong distribution files for the target Python installation -
> even though we do try to make this selection process as simple
> as possible on the download pages.

Of course. what we have is overly complex in some ways.

More download links than what already exist could make the
problem worse.

> To enhance the user experience we were thinking about providing
> a tool to automate the whole process. 

Well let me know if you want a custom version of pythonpkgmgr.

> However, if PIP can
> provide this functionality based on the extended distribution
> file information, we'd rather point our users to PIP.

Thats an option too..

Best Regards

David