[Python-Dev] The Breaking of distutils and PyPI for Python 3000?

[Jeff Rush]

As I'm digging into packaging issues here at PyCon, a couple of Python 3000 
related matters occur to me.  As I'm new to the Python 3000 development, if 
these have already been addressed in prior discussions, I apologize for your time.

1. What is the plan for PyPI when Python 3.0 comes out and
    dependencies start getting satisfied from distribution
    across the great divide, e.g. a 3.0-specific package
    pulls from PyPI a 2.x-specific package to meet some
    need?  Are there plans to fork PyPI, apply special
    tags to uploads or what?  While binary distributions
    are tagged with the Python version, source distributions
    are not.  And of course a dependency expression as
    it stands today for "SomePackage > 2.4" may pull 3.0
    to satisfy it.

2. There have been attempts over the years to fix distutils,
    with the last one being in 2006 by Anthony Baxter. He
    stated that a major hurdle was the strong demand to
    respect backward compatibility and he finally gave up.
    One of the purposes of Python 3.0 was the freedom to
    break backward compatibility for the sake of "doing
    the right thing".  So is it now permissible to give
    distutils a good reworking and stop letting
    compatibility issues hold us back?

-Jeff