[Distutils] easy_install wrong download site preference

[P.J. Eby]

At 09:59 AM 6/30/2010 +0300, anatoly techtonik wrote:
>Hello,
>
>protobuf project have problems with installing via easy_install. One
>part of problem is that the project provides versioned archives
>unrelated to Python that `easy_install` threats as Python packages.
>Corresponding package with the same version number was uploaded to
>PyPI archive, but the easy_install still downloads archive from Google
>Code. Why? I though easy_install should prefer PyPI package.

It prefers newer packages, or, if the versions are the same, it 
prefers the shortest download URL.  In this case, the Google Code url 
is shorter.


>Is it possible to raise the priority of PyPI mirror for protobuf 
>project somehow?

No.  If (e.g.) 
http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/protobuf/protobuf-2.3.0.tar.gz 
and http://protobuf.googlecode.com/files/protobuf-2.3.0.tar.gz aren't 
equivalent files, they should not be named the same thing -- 
especially since this practice can confuse humans as well as easy_install.

On a practical level, if it's too late for the Python project to use 
a different name,  I would suggest changing the PyPI homepage links 
(for current and past releases) to point to a Python-specific project 
page, that does not contain links to download the generic, non-Python 
package.  This will keep easy_install from considering them as 
candidates for downloading.

(Note: you will have to go into PyPI's administration interface and 
manually change the home page link for *all past versions* as well, 
due to the way the /simple index works.)