[Distutils] bdist_nsis, bdist_deb, bdist_msi, bdist_inno, bdist_pkgtool, bdist_sdux, bdist_mpkg, etc.

[Ian Bicking]

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Eggs are nice for plugins and application add-ons, but I don't
> think they should be used for system wide installation of
> Python extensions - these need to be under the control of
> the system's installer which also deals with the Python
> installation itself.

I don't see where you come to that conclusion.  After a long and rather 
difficult discussion regarding Debian packages, while I don't think we 
all came away entirely happy, there seemed to be some reasonable peace 
made about eggs and packages.  There's still some outstanding issues, 
but there's also a plan to resolve those issues.

Honestly I'm still baffled by the hostility towards eggs, as though the 
fact that eggs duplicate some system package functionality means that 
they must be in conflict.  They don't need to be.  Eggs and setuptools 
goes to great length to be compatible with current Python functionality 
and conventions, while adding functionality using the current systems. 
It also goes to great length to be compatible with distutils.  And it 
also has served useful as a backport of distutils, so for instance I can 
make use of the upload command (which I believe is only in distutils in 
2.5).  Phillip has put a lot of effort into making setuptools play 
nicely with current Python conventions.

Anyway, getting back to something concrete, what specifically are the 
issues you see with Eggs as a general distribution format?

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org