[Numpy-discussion] OS X binaries for releases

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 12:14 PM, Russell E. Owen <rowen at uw.edu> wrote:
> In article
> <CABL7CQjaCXp2GrtT8HVmaYAjRm0xmtn1Qt71WKdnbGq7dLU0cQ at mail.gmail.com>,
>  Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Building binaries for releases is currently quite complex and
>> time-consuming. For OS X we need two different machines, because we still
>> provide binaries for OS X 10.5 and PPC machines. I propose to not do this
>> anymore. It doesn't mean we completely drop support for 10.5 and PPC, just
>> that we don't produce binaries. PPC was phased out in 2006 and OS X 10.6
>> came out in 2009, so there can't be a lot of demand for it (and the
>> download stats at
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy/files/NumPy/1.7.1/confirm this).
>>
>> Furthermore I propose to not provide 2.6 binaries anymore. Downloads of 2.6
>> OS X binaries were <5% of the 2.7 ones. We did the same with 2.4 for a long
>> time - support it but no binaries.
>>
>> So what we'd have left at the moment is only the 64-bit/32-bit universal
>> binary for 10.6 and up. What we finally need to add is 3.x OS X binaries.
>> We can make an attempt to build these on 10.8 - since we have access to a
>> hosted 10.8 Mac Mini it would allow all devs to easily do a release
>> (leaving aside the Windows issue). If anyone has tried the 10.6 SDK on 10.8
>> and knows if it actually works, that would be helpful.
>>
>> Any concerns, objections?
>
> I am in strong agreement.
>
> I'll be interested to learn how you make binary installers for python
> 3.x because the standard version of bdist_mpkg will not do it. I have
> heard of two other projects (forks or variants of bdist_mpkg) that will,
> but I have no idea of either is supported.

I think I'm the owner of one of the forks; I supporting it, but I
should certainly make a release soon too.

> I have been able to building packages on 10.8 using
> MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6 that will run on 10.6, so it will probably
> work. However I have run into several odd problems over the years
> building a binary installer on a newer system only to find it won't work
> on older systems for various reasons. Thus my personal recommendation is
> that you build on 10.6 if you want an installer that reliably works for
> 10.6 and later. I keep an older computer around for this reason. In fact
> that is one good reason to drop support for ancient operating systems
> and PPC.

I'm sitting next to a 10.6 machine you are welcome to use; just let me
know, I'll give you login access.

Cheers,

Matthew