[Distutils] Need help switching to setuptools

[Steven Bird]

Hi,

I'm leading the development of NLTK, the Natural Language Toolkit, a
suite of Python modules for analyzing text
[http://nltk.sourceforge.net/].  I'm strugging to work out how to
switch from distutils to setuptools, and am wondering if there's
someone out there who can work with me to do the migration.

There are several components to the distribution:
* a dozen pure python packages
* a dependency on numpy
* a dependency on elementtree for Python < 2.5
* textbook pdfs to be installed centrally
* 200Mb of data (uncompressed) to be installed centrally
* similar amount of data to be generated at install time and stored
centrally ("models")
* directory tree to be stored to user filespace (code samples from the textbook)
* locations of all data to be discovered at run-time by the toolkit
* easy installation on linux, mac and windows

I believe setuptools can do all these things, but I'm stalled on my
way up a steep learning curve!

The NLTK subversion repository is available for anonymous access here:
    svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/nltk/trunk/nltk

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,
-Steven Bird