[Distutils] [Python-Dev] How we can get rid of eggs for 2.6 and beyond

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 11:00 AM 3/22/2008 +0000, Floris Bruynooghe wrote:
>As long as systems (dpkg, rpm, ...) install the .egg-info files they
>do communicate which modules/distributions are installed.  The
>installdb would just duplicate this information (according to the
>current PEP).

.egg-info/PKG-INFO don't list the specific files, though.


>There is a way of telling if you have to keep you hands off a package
>(sorry to bring this up again): installation paths.  /usr/lib is the
>system path, the local admin (and hence setuptools) should keep their
>hands off it at all times (unless requested with a --prefix or so for
>building the debs or rpms but an uninstall in those cases won't be
>required from setuptools).

As I mentioned previously, if the spec says anything about specific 
paths, it will be full of fail.  The spec MUST be able to work with 
*any* local policy about where Python packages are to be 
installed.  Otherwise, any tool that wants to work with install-dbs 
will end up accumulating a long list of paths to be handled specially 
for each OS vendor and version...  and still not handle everything.  No can do.

This has to be a mechanism, not a policy.  Vendors and admins should 
be able to enforce reasonable policies, without requiring that every 
tool have those policies built in.  For one thing, it's an entry 
barrier to tools.

Basically, what I'm proposing here is like WSGI for package 
management tools -- and building anything about paths into the spec 
would be like WSGI spelling out what pages should be at what URLs!