[Distutils] formencode as .egg in Debian ??

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 06:53 PM 11/22/2005 +0100, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>>Finally, I think it's important to note that what Debian should or should 
>>not use isn't really relevant to Debian's users, who will quite simply 
>>need eggs for many packages.  If Debian doesn't provide them, the users 
>>will be forced to obtain them elsewhere.
>
>Debian should provide the packages, but not as eggs.

For packages that only operate as eggs, and/or require their dependencies 
as eggs, you are stating a contradiction in terms.  Eggs are not merely a 
distribution format, any more than Java .jar files are.


>>Over time, the number of packages that users need in egg form will 
>>continue to increase, and there will be an increasing number of users 
>>wanting to know why Debian can't provide them.  It's perfectly reasonable 
>>not to redo existing Debian packages to use eggs, but for some packages, 
>>*not* using eggs is simply not an option.
>
>Debian developers should work with upstream authors to keep a
>distutils-based setup.py operational.

It's perfectly operational; clearly the entire egg system is *well* within 
the Python runtime's intended operating parameters, as it uses only 
well-defined and published aspects of the Python language, API, stdlib, and 
build process.  Note that it's perfectly valid for a distutils-based 
package to install itself in a subdirectory under site-packages, complete 
with its own .pth file - it's a *documented feature* of the distutils.

Perhaps you have some other definition of "operational" in mind?  As I've 
already stated, applying this same policy to Java libraries would be to 
demanding that all the .class files be extracted to the filesystem and any 
manifest files be deleted, before Debian would consent to package them.  In 
other words, it would be silly and pointless, because the users would then 
ignore the packages in favor of actual jars, because then their 
applications would actually work.