[Distutils] [RFC] Recentering the static metadata need : PKG-INFO

[David Lyon]

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:18:57 +0100, Floris Bruynooghe
<floris.bruynooghe at gmail.com> wrote:
> All this seems like a bad idea to me.  Thinking from a GNU/Linux
> distro point of view now you'd need to add a build-depends to e.g. GDM
> *and* KDM only to get the correct .desktop file or something like
> that.  And even worse, as proposed it would probably get confused when
> both are installed.

I don't see why.

An application/package might use KDE and might want to check for it.

An application/package might want to use GNOME and want to check
for it.

Why can't developers check what the platform is?

There's no forcing developers to use these checks. They're only there
to assist in overcoming platform specific installation issues.

> There must be better ways of saying if you want to have (e.g.) a
> .desktop file installed.

Ok.. so throw me some ideas..

> Also the choice you give to a Python package author is suddenly
> massive: linux-gnome-kde-32-whatever.  Just how is a Python package
> author supposed to get this right?

Typically, the don't specify anything. They just assume everything
works on every platform until their test process tells them it isn't
so.

In that case, this mechanism allows them to provide workarounds
for problem cases.

I cannot see how that is a bad idea...

David