[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[Eric Smith]

P.J. Eby wrote:
 > As someone else suggested, moving some of the functionality to PEP 302
 > interfaces would also help.  Most of the code, though, deals with
 > locating/inspecting installed distributions, resolving version
 > requirements, and managing sys.path.  And most of the nastiest
 > complexity comes from trying to support true filename access to
 > resources -- if that were dropped from the stdlib, there'd be no need
 > for egg caches and the like, along with all the complexity entailed.
 >
 > Application environments such as Chandler, Trac, Zope, etc. that want
 > their plugins to live in .egg files wouldn't necessarily be able to use
 > such an API, but the independent pkg_resources wouldn't be
 > disappearing.  (Of course, they could also implement
 > application-specific file extraction, if the stdlib API included the
 > ability to inspect and open zipped resources.)

Could you comment on why they couldn't use such an API?