[Distutils] setup_requires not caching downloaded packages?

[Barry Warsaw]

We have a suite of tools in the 'lazr' namespace that we've begun to  
release as open source.  All of these packages are maintained under  
bzr and it's really nice to be able to add this to our setup.py:

setup_requires=['setuptools_bzr']

This extends setuptools so that we can use bzr instead of the built-in  
revision control systems.  With that, 'python setup.py sdist' pulls in  
the right stuff.  All of our packages are buildout based.

The problem is that when we buildout the package, the download cache  
is never consulted and setuptools_bzr is /always/ downloaded.  This is  
a non-starter for our production environments, which are not allowed  
to hit the external 'net during build time.  Because of this, we've  
had to disable the setup_requires.  We can kind of make things work  
with MANIFEST.ins but I'd prefer to be able to use setup_requires.   
Otherwise, um, what's the point of having this plugin?

I'm not sure whether this is a bug in setuptools, distutils, or  
buildout, but since y'all are here, we should be able to figure it  
out.  Or do you not think this is a bug?

If you agree it's a bug, and we can agree where it's a bug, I'd be  
willing to put some time into fixing this, if we can get a timely  
update released in the affected package.

Thanks,
-Barry

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