[Distutils] Current Python packaging status (from my point of view)

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 2:29 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3 November 2016 at 00:02, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Anaconda has an overwhelming advantage on Windows, in that Continuum
>> can bear the licensing liabilities enforced by the Intel Fortran
>> compiler, and we can not.  We therefore have no license-compatible
>> Fortran compiler for Python 3.5 - so we can't build scipy, and that's
>> a full stop for the scipy stack.   I'm sure you know, but the only
>> practical open-source option is mingw-w64, that does not work with the
>> Microsoft runtime used by Python 3.5 [1].  It appears the only person
>> capable of making mingw-w64 compatible with this runtime is Ray
>> Donnelly, who now works for Continuum, and we haven't yet succeeded in
>> finding the 15K USD or so to pay Continuum for his time.
>
> Is this something the PSF could assist with? Either in terms of
> funding work to get mingw-w64 working, or in terms of funding (or
> negotiating) Intel Fortran licenses for the community?

I'm afraid paying for the Intel Fortran licenses won't help because
the problem is in the Intel Fortran runtime license [1].

But - it would be a huge help if the PSF could help with funding to
get mingw-w64 working.  This is the crucial blocker for progress on
binary wheels on Windows.   Nathaniel - do you have any recent news on
progress?

Cheers,

Matthew

[1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/comment/1881526