[Distutils] Proposal: using /etc/os-release in the "platform tag" definition for wheel files

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 03:02:57 +1000
Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Many users (quite reasonably, if they're primarily Python developers)
> have problems working through build failures when attempting to
> install non-Python extensions from source. Such build failures are
> usually models of clarity compared to diagnosing dynamic linking
> failures.

However, installing a binary doesn't imply a potential longish building
step, or the installation of many build dependencies. LLVM can take 20
minutes to compile on a modern quad-core x86. I've been told it takes
several hours on a Cortex A8 platform... By comparison, the failure of
loading a precompiled dynamic library is instantaneous.

And I don't think build failures are understandable by many users. You
need to be a seasoned C developer for that.

> > (at Continuum we have started offering such a service, but it's
> > "generic Linux": http://docs.binstar.org/build-config.html#BuildMatrix)
> 
> Yes, Continuum avoided the distro ABI compatibility problem by
> defining its own ABI.

Not exactly. Some ABI problems - for example the glibc-related ones -
are still here. Conda and binstar-build are still a best effort (on the
GNU/Linux side, that is), not an ideal solution.

> > Well, *allowing* distro tags in the platform tag is certainly ok. What
> > I'm afraid of is if that's made mandatory.
> 
> OK, that makes more sense. Yes, I agree we need to keep the ability to
> say "this is a prebuilt, self-contained, binary wheel that should run
> on any Linux system because it doesn't link to any system binaries".
> Chalk it up as yet another reason that the specific proposal I started
> the thread with wouldn't actually work :)

Great!

Regards

Antoine.