[Python-Dev] Fwd: Broken link to download (Mac OS X)

[C. Titus Brown]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 07:36:25AM +0200, "Martin v. L?wis" wrote:
> >> In a wider sense of "to support", MacOS is certainly supported by
> >> Python. There is everything in the source code that you need to make
> >> Python run on a Mac. Just download the sources and compile them yourself.
> >>
> > And yet we don't regard the Windows release as complete until you have
> > built the binaries (for which service you deserve many thanks, by the way).
> 
> This phenomenon exists for a lot of other systems, as well. For example,
> we also support Solaris, but stopped providing Solaris binaries since
> Python 1.5 (when I last built binaries for Das Python-Buch). People
> still can get Solaris binaries from ActiveState or Sunfreeware; Sun also
> ships Python as part of the system.

I personally think the Mac is pretty important, as one of the big three
consumer operating systems...

> > Is the Mac platform one on which users will be happy to compile from
> > source? I know its users are savvier than Windows users, and have a
> > better tool set available to them, but they still seem to expect
> > downloadable installers.
> 
> The major difference in the "do it yourself" attitude is that Mac user
> get a compiler for free, as part of the operating system release,
> whereas for Windows, they have to pay for it (leaving alone VS Express
> for the moment).

Actually, I think the more pernicious factor is that a version of Python comes
pre-installed on Mac OS X, which means the up-front demand is lower
for a pre-compiled version.  This is problematic, though, because that
version of Python only gets upgraded with full releases of Mac OS X
(which are not very well correlated with releases of Python, of course).
So we have lots of Python installs out there that, in the absence of
a precompiled binary version, can't be upgraded without installing
the developer tools.

> However, the real difference is motivation for contribution to open
> source projects. You normally contribute to scratch an itch.
> Unfortunately, these binaries don't come out such a motiviation. So the
> release manager roles are either altruistic, or rely on extrinsic
> motivations (money, reputation).

I don't know what to do about motivation but if there are barriers that
we can lower, please let me know.

cheers,
--titus
-- 
C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu