[Distutils] Packaging situation + mailing list rules

[P.J. Eby]

At 03:23 PM 7/3/2010 -0400, Tres Seaver wrote:
>In that spirit, Tarek, you need to stop saying "setuptools is
>unmaintained for the last 2 years":  PJE objects to it as unfactual, as
>do I.  THe release last October makes that statement untrue on its face.

Additionally, I would like to have some reassurance that when I begin 
releasing 0.7 alpha versions, that the distribute community is not 
going to start accusing me (as Tarek just did) of doing things "in 
reaction" to them, or to sabotage them, or say that I'm trying to 
force people to switch back to setuptools...

And ideally, I would like them to refrain from implementing 
technological measures to interfere with setuptools' normal upgrade process.

Since last September, the current release of setuptools has been 
downloaded from PyPI more times than all releases of distribute 
*combined*.  I am therefore much more concerned with providing normal 
updates to the setuptools user base, than I am with interfering with 
people who really *want* to use distribute, for whatever reason.

However, by the same token, it also means that I have no wish to 
spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to work *around* 
distribute!  I would much prefer to advise people who wish to upgrade 
setuptools, to simply uninstall distribute before upgrading, rather 
than to have to implement technological measures to address the situation.

But the last time that I advised that people upgrading setuptools 
needed to uninstall distribute first, I received accusations that I 
was trying to undermine distribute and spread FUD by telling people 
to uninstall it.

(My time for working on open source development these days is 
limited, and tends to come in chunks, especially around 
holidays.  There were at least two such opportunities earlier this 
year where I considered tackling some of my smaller planned features 
for 0.7, and then thought about the likely hassle of actually 
*releasing* any of that work, and then promptly turned my attention 
to other, less-controversial projects.)