[Distutils] [Catalog-sig] packaging terminology confusion

[John Gabriele]

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 2:48 PM, Lennart Regebro <regebro at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 20:17, Suno Ano <suno.ano at sunoano.org> wrote:
>
>>  - *package* means a Python package, (directory intended to be on
>>   sys.path, with an __init__.py. We *never* mean a distributable
>>   or installable archive, except when “impedance matching” with
>>   folks who think in terms of operating system parcels.
>>
>>  - *parcel* is such a distributable / installable archive:
>>   either in source form (an ’sdist’), or one of the binary
>>   forms (egg., etc.). Any parcel may contain multiple
>>   packages (or even no packages, in the case of standalone
>>   scripts).
>>
>>  - *project* is the process / community which produces releases of
>>   a given set of software, identified by a name unique within
>>   PyPI’s namespace. PyPI manages metadata about projects (names,
>>   owners) and their releases. Every real project has at least
>>   one release.
>>
>>  - *release* is a set of one or more parcels of a project,
>>   each sharing the same version. Some PyPI metadata is specific
>>   to a release, rather than a project. Every release has at
>>   least one parcel.
>>
>>  - *installer* is an OS specific piece of software provides by
>>   some project which usually installs a Python interpreter and
>>   other general software in order to have some Python
>>   application installed from scratch.
>
> Yes. Again, exactly how I use the words already. This is the same for
> all intents and purposes as Tareks proposal, this is how the words are
> being used already in practice.

I would also add the common use of the term "distribution" to that
glossary as well.

At http://python.org/download/ , that big software archive that you
download, unpack, and install---giving you a Python installed on your
system---is referred to as a "distribution". Ex., "the python.org
Python distribution", "the ActiveState Python distribution", etc.

Enthought calls theirs a distribution as well:
http://enthought.com/products/epd.php

Incidentally, Perl calls theirs distributions too:
http://www.cpan.org/ (source code distribution available here
http://www.cpan.org/src/README.html ).

Ruby calls theirs distributions as well http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/ .

---John