[Distutils] Working toward Linux wheel support

[Paul Moore]

On 18 July 2015 at 02:13, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal
<chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
>> Someone needs to write that specification. Propose we forget about Windows for the first revision, so that it is possible to get it done.
>
> If we want Windows support in the long run -- and we do -- we should
> be thinking about it from the start. But if it's going in the
> Python-managed dirs, it doesn't have to follow Windows convention ...

I agree that excluding Windows is probably a mistake (differing
expectations on Windows will come back to bite you if you do that).
But Windows shouldn't be a huge issue as long as it's clearly noted
that all directories will be within the Python-managed dirs. (Even if
the system install on Unix doesn't work like this, virtualenvs on Unix
have to, so that's not a Windows-specific point).

Managing categories that make no sense on particular platforms (e.g.
manpages on Windows) is the only other thing that I can think of that
considering Windows might bring up, but again, it's not actually
Windows specific (HTML Help files on Unix, for instance, would be
similar - an obvious resolution is just to document that certain
directories simply won't be installed on inappropriate platforms).

Paul