[Distutils] Distutils changes - end user requirements (Was: Deprecate MANIFEST.in)

[Tres Seaver]

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Paul Moore wrote:
> 2009/4/9 Lennart Regebro <regebro at gmail.com>:
>> 2009/4/9 Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com>:
>>> Don't they? I have to admit that I'm baffled by how the features in
>>> setuptools/eggs/easy_install all hang together. What about the magic
>>> that creates executables from scripts? Entry points? Stuff like that.
>>> Don't you need to use eggs to make them work?
>> No....? Entry points work even if you have the source code in a tgz
>> format and run setup.py install. The distribution format is not
>> magical for that afaik.
>>
>>> So by what you're saying, eggs are a strict subset of
>>> bdist_wininst, and so people should be distributing bdist_wininst
>>> installers. But they aren't, so what gives?
>> Nobody knows about it?
> 
> Possibly :-(
> 
>> But in any case, even if it would be a good idea to have every single
>> Python package on the system listed in the Add/Remove programs list
>> (Which I don't think it is, but that's a matter of taste, no logical
>> arguments behind that), that would in practice mean that each and
>> every package on PyPI must have a wininstaller, even if it is a
>> pure-python package. That doesn't seem realistic to me.
> 
> Personally, I'd be happy if every package that currently distributes
> any form of Windows binaries, distributed a Windows installer. That's
> about the same level of coverage as existed before setuptools
> appeared, so I don't think that's impossible to achieve. I agree that
> expecting *everything* to have a Windows installer is unreasonable.

Is there a technical reason why Windows users cannot build the
installers themselves from "pure Python" sdists?  I would rather
distribute *no* binaries at all, myself, especially if "self-help"
works.  Stuff which requires a compiler is obviously a barrier for many
Windows users:  such packages normally need a Windows-savvy contributor
to do the installer build, which often lags the 'sdist' release by a
noticeable period.



Tres.
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Tres Seaver          +1 540-429-0999          tseaver at palladion.com
Palladion Software   "Excellence by Design"    http://palladion.com
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