[Distutils] Multi-distribution distributions

[Andrew Kuchling]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 11:49:06PM -0800, Paul Prescod wrote:
>I could have a special case for NumPy and a special case for ZODB and a
>special case for ... But there are around 600 extensions on the Vaults
>of Parnassus and about 1800 Perl extensions on CPAN. If I'm going to

The unified ZODB distribution is really several extensions in one:
ExtensionClasses, for example, are potentially useful in their own
right without the rest of ZODB.  But I don't want to make people
download seven different packages, so they're wrapped up in a single
distribution.  The true solution would be a tool like Debian's apt-get
to automatically download the dependencies for a package, but that's a
long way away.  If you're working on a Python package manager for
ActiveState and want to package the ZODB, then all the components can
just be packaged separately.

I'm not sure if a similar approach would help for the mx* packages,
though, and agree that some convention should be selected.  Anyone got
any ideas?

--amk