[Python-Dev] Remove site-packages?!? [was: [Distutils] PEP 376 - from pythonpkgmgr's point of view]

[James Y Knight]

On Jul 21, 2009, at 7:38 PM, David Lyon wrote:
> When I go into python on ubuntu I see there is /usr/local/pythonX.X/ 
> lib/
> site-packages and I'm wondering why the hubba setuptools/distutils
> doesn't put packages there by default. That would solve a lot of
> problems.
>
> Just leave /usr/lib/pythonX.X//lib/site-packages to the O/S.

Uh guys, I'm not sure if anyone here noticed, but Debian and Ubuntu  
have switched to install their distribution-supplied python libraries  
into:
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/lib/dist-packages
and distutils by default will install into
/usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/dist-packages

starting with python 2.6.

See:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/02/msg00431.html

Since that email says "Discussed this with Barry Warsaw and Martin v.  
Loewis", I'd assume this change would be more widely known in the  
distutils/python-dev community, but apparently not??

James