[Python-Dev] BDFL delegation for PEP 426 + distutils freeze

[Chris Jerdonek]

On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Chris Jerdonek
<chris.jerdonek at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Éric Araujo <merwok at netwok.org> wrote:
>> Le 03/02/2013 07:48, Antoine Pitrou a écrit :
>>> I vote for removing the "distutils is frozen" principle.
>> I’ve also been thinking about that.  There have been two exceptions to
>> the freeze, for ABI flags in extension module names and for pycache
>> directories.  When the stable ABI was added and MvL wanted to change
>> distutils (I don’t know to do what exactly), Tarek stood firm on the
>> freeze and asked for any improvement to go into distutils2, and after
>> MvL said that he would not contibute to an outside project, we merged d2
>> into the stdlib.  Namespace packages did not impact distutils either.
>> Now that we’ve removed packaging from the stdlib, we have two Python
>> features that are not supported in the standard packaging system, and I
>> agree that it is a bad thing for our users.
>>
>> I’d like to propose a reformulation of the freeze:
>
> This could be common knowledge, but is the current formulation of the
> freeze spelled out somewhere?

I asked this earlier, but didn't see a response.  Is the freeze stated
somewhere like in a PEP?  If not, can someone state it precisely (e.g.
what's allowed to change and what's not)?

Thanks,
--Chris