[Distutils] SOLVED: bdist_rpm and pre-release python packages / eggs (was: pre-release versioning problems with sdist, bdist_rpm, bdist_debian)

[Gerry Reno]

Manuel,
  For years I see developers trying to export problems from the source 
domain over to some other domain because they don't want to fix the 
problem at its source.  And this ends up creating unnecessary 
dependencies in software which makes it brittle and difficult to evolve 
the software.
  What you are proposing is an example of people "throwing things over 
the fence".  This is a bad practice.  In this particular instance the 
SOURCE of the problem is 'setuptools' naming conventions.  And therefore 
the solution needs to be taken in setuptools.  By taking problems like 
this and throwing them over the fence, you create more problems by 
making the software more tightly coupled, with more dependencies, and 
that makes software brittle and easily broken, hard to maintain, 
difficult of evolve.

  As far as offering alternative solutions to your patch.  I've already 
done that but you want to ignore them. 
Here's the two solutions:
1.  Go fix the problem in 'setuptools'.
2.  Put your string rewriter into an extension that overrides bdist_rpm 
and call it from a special commandline option.  This way it's in 
Distutils but does not impact every user.  Those that need it can call 
it using the commandline option.



Regards,
Gerry