[Python-Dev] Package install failures in 2.6.3

[James Y Knight]

On Oct 5, 2009, at 2:21 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
> I should also mention this bug was not unknown. I discovered it  
> after Distribute 0.6 was released as I always run cutting edge  
> interpreters. Never bothered to report it until Distribute 0.6.1 was  
> released which Tarek fixed in less than a week. I never bothered to  
> report it for setuptools as I know it isn't maintained.
>
> It's probably in our best interest to just get people over to  
> Distribute, let it continue to hijack setuptools, and slowly let  
> that name fade out if it is going to continue to be unmaintained. I  
> have to admit I find it really disheartening that we are letting an  
> unmaintained project dictate how we fix a bug. I really hope this is  
> a one-time deal and from this point forward we all move the  
> community towards Distribute so we never feel pressured like this  
> again.

Even though the bug was noticed, nobody thought that, just perhaps,  
breaking other software in a minor point release might be a bad idea,  
no matter whether it was updated in less-than-a-week, or mostly- 
unmaintained?

Once you have an API that you encourage people to subclass, *of  
course* it dictates how you can fix a bug.

James