[Python-Dev] Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream

[Toshio Kuratomi]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 09:11:40PM -0500, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Mar 03, 2011, at 02:17 PM, David Malcolm wrote:
> 
> >On a related note, we have a number of scripts packaged across the
> >distributions with a shebang line that reads:
> >   #!/usr/bin/env python
> >which AIUI follows upstream recommendations.
> 
> Actually, I think this is *not* a good idea for distro provided scripts.  For
> any Python scripts released by the distro, you know exactly which Python it
> should run on, so it's better to hard code it.  That way, if someone installs
> Python from source, or installs an experimental version of a new distro
> Python, it won't break their system.  Yes, this has happened to me.  Also,
> note that distutils/setuptools/distribute rewrite the shebang line when they
> install scripts.
> 
> >There was a proposal to change these when packaging them to hardcode the
> >specific python binary:
> >
> >https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemPythonExecutablesUseSystemPython
> >on the grounds that a packaged system script is expecting (and has been
> >tested against) a specific python build.
> >
> >That proposal has not yet been carried out.  Ideally if we did this,
> >we'd implement it as a postprocessing phase within "rpmbuild", rather
> >than manually patching hundreds of files.
> >
> >Note that this would only cover shebang lines at the tops of scripts.
> 
> JFDI!
> 
> FWIW, a quick grep reveals about two dozen such scripts in /usr/bin on
> Ubuntu.  We should fix these. ;)
> 
Note, we were unable to pass Guideline changes to do this in Fedora.  Gory
details of the FPC meeting are at 16:15:03 (abadger1999 == me):
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-08-19/fedora-meeting.2009-08-19-16.01.log.html

The mailing list thread where this was discussed is here:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/packaging/2009-July/006248.html

Note to dmalcolm: IIRC, that also means that the Feature page you point to
isn't going to happen either.  Barry -- if other distros adopted stronger
policies, then that might justify me taking this back to the Packaging
Committee.

-Toshio
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20110303/c2edb995/attachment.pgp>