[Python-bugs-list] Python 1.6a1 - installation report (PR#263)

[François Pinard]

Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> écrit:

> > Creating `/usr/local/stow/python-1.6a1' by hand and reinstalling
> > allowed Python to get in its place, yet for all Autoconf-igured
> > packages I installed here, this is not necessary so far that I remember.
> > Maybe Python does not use `mkinstalldirs' (I did not check)?  If not,
> > it should do similarly.

> There is reason to this (plus I don't like being told to follow the GNU
> guidelines -- Python is not GNU software :-).

I do not perceive Python as GNU software.  I even confess this is part of
my interest.  After more than 12 years of intense work for the FSF by pure
dedication, I'm now trying to widen my horizons, get out of my own mini-ivory
tower, back in the big land, and participate to non-FSF free software.

However, when an idea is good, it should not be dismissed on the sole
premise that the FSF likes it.  They are not _always_ wrong! :-).

> In your case, it seems that /usr/local/stow did not exist; is this correct?

`/usr/local/stow' existed, but `/usr/local/stow/python-1.6a1' did not.
This is why the installation failed.  I do all local installations here,
through a big script automating them (which I wrote in Python :-).  I easily
modified that script for repairing the above problem on the fly: so it
is not a problem anymore for me.  However, it might be for anybody else
using Stow, or Stow-like installations, so I think it was worth reporting,
and probably worth correcting.

Thanks for the other explanations in your reply (not repeated here).

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard