[Distutils] Python people want CPAN and how the latter came about

[Lennart Regebro]

On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 05:03, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess you meant upload. The reasons I see for making some things, in
> particular upload mandatory are as follows:
>  - file upload makes pure rsync-based mirroring. In the case of CRAN,
> you mirror with one rsync command. No need for fancy scheme, new
> packages, etc...

But you can already do that with the files that are uploaded. You
claim that to mirror PyPI, you have to *also* include files that are
*not* hosted on PyPI. That makes no sense. Sorry.

>  - lack of tarballs/installers means that when you use an installer,
> for example easy_install, it has to find it in another way.

Which is already does, do that's not a problem.

> This way is based on scraping

I agree that it would be better if the package uploaders included a
download URL in the metadata. This for some reason seems unusual.

> the website may be dead, not available anymore,
> etc... In that case, installation fails.

This is true. I agree it would be better of people uploaded their
packages to PyPI. But this is a difference in attitude, and it's a
difference between forcing people to upload, and helping people. It
really is what it comes down to. I tried to avoid saying it in such
plain terms, but the message seems not to reach through.

I think we should figure out *why* people are not uploading and then
help them fix the reason this is not so. You say we should tell them
to upload or bugger off. That will mean that people buggers off. That
is still NOT an improvement, and it will NOT become an improvement
because you repeat it more times. Requiring uploads will make PyPI
*worse* not better and means it will have *less* packages, and when
you can't even find a package via a download URL or scraping, well,
then you can't find it automatically at all.

> I did not know it was even "allowed" to register non open source code
> in Pypi.  That's the first time I see the argument given (and the
> first time a real argument is given). Is this a major requirement ?

Since I have given exactly that argument: That licenses and similar
prevents people from uploading some code, that is proof that you don't
read my answers. You should.

-- 
Lennart Regebro: Python, Zope, Plone, Grok
http://regebro.wordpress.com/
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