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

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 06:41 PM 11/28/2006 -0500, Barry Warsaw wrote:
>On Nov 28, 2006, at 4:19 PM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>>At 01:05 PM 11/28/2006 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>>>On 11/28/06, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
>>> > There's a related issue that may or may not be in scope for this
>>> > thread.  For distros like Gentoo or Ubuntu that rely heavily on
>>>their
>>> > own system Python for the OS to work properly, I'm quite loathe to
>>> > install Cheeseshop packages into the system site-packages.
>>>
>>>I wonder if would help if we were to add a vendor-packages directory
>>>where distros can put their own selection of 3rd party stuff they
>>>depend on, to be searched before site-packages, and a command-line
>>>switch that ignores site-package but still searches vendor-package.
>>>(-S would almost do it but probably suppresses too  much.)
>>
>>They could also use -S and then explicitly insert the vendor- packages 
>>directory into sys.path at the beginning of their scripts.
>
>Possibly, but stuff like this can be a pain because your dependent
>app must build in the infrastructure itself to get the right paths
>set up for its scripts.
>...
>Maybe there's no better way of doing this and applications are best
>left to their own devices.  But in the back of my mind, I keep
>thinking there should be a better way. ;)

Well, you can always use setuptools, which generates script wrappers that 
import the desired module and call a function, after first setting up 
sys.path.  :)