[Distutils] Multi-distribution distributions

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 12:54:39PM +0100, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> >I am currently planning to release the mx Extensions as three
> >packages: BASE, CRYPTO and COMMERCIAL. Each of these packages
> >will contain a set of mx subpackages with CRYPTO and COMMERCIAL
> >depending on BASE.
> 
> But if BASE includes, say, mxDateTime, mxODBC, and mxTextTools, how
> would a user specify that only mxDateTime and mxODBC should be
> compiled? 

He wouldn't... it's either all packages or none. I really don't
think that standard Joe User cares about too many packages
being installed (at least at the size of a few 100kB each).

> I think that's what Paul is wondering about, and I think
> this should be standardized to keep the process of building packages
> consistent.

True, but I also fear that many packages will have specialized
setup.py files to accomodate for their resp. needs, e.g. the
autoconf machinery in distutils is still in its infancy and
a more powerful library detection would also be needed to satisfy
extensions built around third-party libs.

Still distutils is a big step forward, since there's a single
interface for the installation process: setup.py in the
packages base distribution directory.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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