[Distutils] Package install failures in 2.6.3 - setuptools vs Distribute

[P.J. Eby]

At 04:57 PM 10/5/2009 +0200, Lennart Regebro wrote:
>2009/10/5 Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org>:
> > I apologize for my part in this, but moving forward I think that if it's
> > possible to patch and release a setuptools that works with Python 2.6.3
> > /and/ earlier Python 2.6.x's, then that should happen asap.
>
>PJE seems interested in this, as he asked about a patch, so maybe.

I expect to have a small amount of time later this week to work on 
setuptools.  No guarantees, but this is certainly one of the bugs on 
my short list for doing something with.


> > If that's not possible, then we might need to revert the distutils
> > change in a quick Python 2.6.4.
>
>That would be a big mistake.

Actually, I think the mistake here is where non-bugfix code was 
ported from 3.x back to the 2.6.x maintenance branch.  I'm 
particularly concerned about the .compiler / ._compiler change, as it 
seems to me to be responsible for breaking mingw32 compilation on 
Windows, but I haven't had time to investigate thoroughly.  (It 
actually looks like a problem that might be in Python 3 as well.)