[Python-Dev] Python and the Linux Standard Base (LSB)

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Robin Bryce schrieb:
> python2.4 profile (pstats) etc, was removed due to licensing issues
> rather than FHS. Should not be an issue for python2.5 but what, in
> general, can a vendor do except break python if their licensing policy
> cant accommodate all of pythons batteries ?

If some vendor has a valid concern about the licensing of a certain
piece of Python, they should bring that up while the LSB is being
defined.

> python2.4 distutils is excluded by default. This totally blows in my
> view but I appreciate this one is a minefield of vendor packaging
> politics. It has to be legitimate for Python / setuptools too provide
> packaging infrastructure and conventions that are viable on more than
> linux.

Again, that a decision for the LSB standard to make. If LSB defines that
distutils is part of LSB (notice the *If*: this is all theoretical;
the LSB doesn't yet define anything for Python), then each vendor
can still chose to include distutils or not, if they don't, they
wouldn't comply to that version of LSB. So it is *always* their choice
what standard to follow.

OTOH, certain customers demand LSB conformance, so a vendor that choses
not to follow LSB may lose customers.

I personally agree that "Linux standards" should specify a standard
layout for a Python installation, and that it should be the one that
"make install" generates (perhaps after "make install" is adjusted).
Whether or not it is the *LSB* that needs to specify that, I don't
know, because the LSB does not specify a file system layout. Instead,
it incorporates the FHS - which might be the right place to define
the layout of a Python installation. For the LSB, it's more import
that "import httplib" gives you something working, no matter where
httplib.py comes from (or whether it comes from httplib.py at all).

Regards,
Martin