[Python-Dev] Edits to Metadata 1.2 to add extras (optional dependencies)

[Paul Moore]

On 14 September 2012 17:30, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> we strongly recommend it be named as README.* and be
> utf-8 encoded text.

I'd very strongly recommend that the encoding should be mandated. I'm
happy with UTF-8 (although I expect a lot of "accidental" latin-1
files, particularly from Windows users) but I think it would be a
mistake to have the specification leaving the encoding of *any* string
data unclear. Without the encoding being specified, either in the
metadata itself ("Description-File-Encoding: utf8"? Please, no) or by
the specification mandating it, how is a program expected to read the
description?

Other than this point, I have no opinion on the proposal.

Paul.