[Distutils] What precisely is meant by removing bdist modules from the stdlib? (Was: Packaging: bdist_deb patches)

[Eric Smith]

I'll share my thoughts on the other points when I have some time, but 
I'd like to address this one now:

Paul Moore wrote:
> PS I have a paranoid feeling that there's a subtext somewhere here to
> the effect that participants in the discussion don't see why there's
> such a big deal, as everyone should be using
> setuptools/easy_install/eggs anyway. Please let's avoid getting into
> that here. Can we assume for the purposes of this discussion that
> easy_install and eggs are not relevant, as the target audience for the
> bdist_ commands is *precisely* those people who don't want to use
> setuptools?
> 

I'm a huge user of bdist_rpm. I definitely agree that easy_install and 
eggs are not relevant to this discussion. This is only about distutils 
and what it includes.

And while I'm for removing the bdist_* commands from distutils, I'm 
neutral on removing their functionality from the standard library. I 
think they'll all ultimately require a lot of work as distutils evolves.

Eric.