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

[David Cournapeau]

Tarek Ziadé wrote:
> The proper answer is : Setuptools is on the top of Distutils and has
> to evolve with it.
> And since it monkey patches it, it has to be changed when a Distutils
> release breaks it.

I want to note that the issue here is not monkey-patching, it is
subclassing the command classes. If two tools like setuptools each
subclass a distutils command, they cannot work together, it is
impossible by the very 'design' of distutils, that's not setuptools'
fault. numpy.distutils has the same problem (and I am sure tools like
paver or pip as well): everytime distutils changes its implementation,
some things are broken and we have to adapt.

The only way to make this work is to test everything combination and
making sure each extension does  not walk on each other - that's one of
the core reason why distutils is such a mess IMO.

cheers,

David