[Distutils] Distutils confusion - please give me a hand

[Donn Ingle]

Hi,
 I have been okay with distutils until my tree got a little bigger, now I am
getting errors like:
distutils.errors.DistutilsFileError: can't
copy 'fontypythonmodules/things/': doesn't exist or not a regular file

I confess to being absolutely lost here. I have a few sub-directories inside
my package that contain help stuff and locale stuff which I want distutils
to include and install. It always worked before, until I invented the
help/common/en directory and now it just won't work any more.

Here's my tree (warning, monotype font needed):
trunk:$ tree
.
|-- COPYING
|-- MANIFEST.in
|-- PKG-INFO
|-- README
|-- fontypython
|-- fontypythonmodules
|   |-- __init__.py
|   |-- cli.py
|   |-- dialogues.py
|   |-- fontcontrol.py
|   |-- fontybugs.py
|   |-- fpsys.py
|   |-- fpversion.py
|   |-- help
|   |   |-- README
|   |   |-- common
|   |   |   |-- README
|   |   |   |-- fp1.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp2.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp3.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp4.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp5.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp6.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp7.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp8.png.cr.png
|   |   |   |-- fp_already_in_x.png
|   |   |   |-- fp_removing_a_font-nq8.png
|   |   |   |-- fp_removing_a_font.png
|   |   |   |-- fp_ticking.png
|   |   |   `-- logo_dec_2007.png
|   |   `-- en
|   |       |-- README
|   |       |-- fp_1to8.png
|   |       |-- fp_pog_icons.cr.png
|   |       `-- help.html
|   |-- i18n.py
|   |-- locale
|   |   `-- fr
|   |       `-- LC_MESSAGES
|   |           `-- all.mo
|   |-- pathcontrol.py
|   |-- pofiles
|   |   |-- README
|   |   |-- fontypython_translation_template.pot
|   |   `-- fr_all.dec30.pot
|   |-- pubsub.py
|   |-- start.py
|   |-- strings.py
|   |-- things
|   |   |-- README
|   |   |-- aboutfplogo.png
|   |   |-- cross.png
|   |   |-- fplogo.png
|   |   |-- icon_source_16x16.png
|   |   |-- icon_source_folder_16x16.png
|   |   |-- icon_source_pog_16x16.png
|   |   |-- icon_target_16x16.png
|   |   |-- pog16x16.installed.png
|   |   |-- pog16x16.png
|   |   |-- pog16x16.target.png
|   |   `-- tick.png
|   `-- wxgui.py
|-- fp
`-- setup.py

Here's my MANIFEST.in
include fontypython fp README COPYING
recursive-include fontypythonmodules/pofiles *
recursive-include fontypythonmodules/things *
recursive-include fontypythonmodules/help *
recursive-include fontypythonmodules/locale *

And here's my basic setup.py, stripped down somewhat:

files =
["things/*", "help/*", "help/common/*.*", "help/en/*", "pofiles/*", "locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/*"]

setup(name = "fontypython",
    packages = ['fontypythonmodules'],
    package_data = {'fontypythonmodules' : files},
    scripts = ["fontypython", "fp"], ....)

Weirdly, the path to locale/fr/etc... works just fine. things/* also worked
(before I added help). It does not like help/common for some reason I
cannot fathom. I have checked case and permissions, but all seems in order.


Can anyone point me in the right direction? 

\d