[Distutils] distutils2 Forward Compatibility module

[Erik Bray]

Hi all,
This is my first post specifically to distutils-sig, though I've had
an interest in packaging for a while (having come up with some fairly
arcane schemes in the past, where no better alternatives were
apparent).

At any rate: I'm currently working on a plan to overhaul how a number
of my company's projects are packaged and distributed.  Right now they
all rely on a monkey-patched, hacked up distutils that needs to go
away.  I'm already on top of that.

But seeing as how distutils2 is going to be the "new hotness" I want
to plan for at as part of my overhaul.  I realize that distutils2 is
still in flux, and anything I do now will have to be tweaked as
development on it continues.  I am fine with this, as I still intend
to use Distribute as the primary installation mechanism.  But I really
like how distutils2 keeps all metadata in the setup.cfg file, and want
to start doing that now, so that I don't have to keep two copies of
everything.

It should be no problem to just have my setup.py read everything it
needs out of setup.cfg, but what I'm wondering is if there is already
an extension to do this, or will I have to roll my own?  It just seems
like an obvious thing to have for transitioning to distutils2, and if
it doesn't already exist it should (I will of course be happy to
contribute).  I should note that I don't want distutils2 itself to be
a dependency for installing my packages, as it is too unstable, so
directly using any machinery built into it is out of the question.

Thanks for any comments,
Erik