[Distutils] sdist default archive format

[Leonardo Santagada]

On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:07 PM, Trent Mick wrote:

>> I've changed the sdist command some time ago, so it uses the sdtilb
>> tarfile module, instead of the "tar" command,
>> meaning that we could switch to the tar format under windows by
>> default as well now, not requiring the "tar" program anymore
>>
>> But some people may prefer the zip format.
>>
>> What are your opinion on this ?
>
> My preferences is for .zip (that is what I use for my packages), the
> main reason is that Windows users can always unpack a .zip file. Often
> that is not true for .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 files.
>
> This reference is ancient, but the argument is valid, IMO:
> http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/some_notes_on_the_building_of_codezoo.php
>> ...
>> Where there were multiple versions available, we chose the most  
>> recent, stable version and made that the default. Where there were  
>> multiple packages, we chose the Zip format (which is widely  
>> available on any platform) and got rid or tar.gz, tar.bz, .exe, and  
>> everything else we could. If there were many parts of the  
>> component, we defaulted to the one file that gave the user the most  
>> value in a single download. Other files, versions, and packages  
>> fell to the bottom of the page -- available for the users that  
>> absolutely need it, but far from distracting for the users that  
>> just want to get their work done. Reducing choices makes the site  
>> more useful, not less.
>> ...
>
>
> The tradeoff is that .zip files are compressed as well. But I don't
> believe that difference in compression size between
> .zip/.tar.gz/.tar.bz2 is that big of a concern in *most* cases because
> most Python sdist's are small, are they not?

Zip files don't support symbolic links(and maybe unix permissions/ 
ownership). Maybe tarek could include a python script in tools to  
uncompress tar files so you can always be sure that there is support  
for it even on windows.

Is support for symbolic links(unix permissions/ownership) important?

--
Leonardo Santagada
santagada at gmail.com