[Python-ideas] win32 extensions

[Nick Coghlan]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Massimo Di Pierro
> <massimo.dipierro at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Just a question. What is the reason the win32 extensions are shipped
>> separately?
>
> This might better be asked on the developers's forum; this forum is for
> discussing changes to Python.

'Why is it so?' questions are perfectly reasonable fodder for
python-ideas (since they're usually a precursor to "let's do it
differently"). Part of the reason this list exists is so
misunderstandings of why Python is the way it is can be clarified here
without generating traffic on the main development list.

>> Is it a licensing issue or is there another reason?
>
> Here is a message to consider for information about this issue
> <URL:http://bugs.python.org/issue4954#msg85994>.

I'm not sure why you linked that - it's about the need to use Visual
Studio to safely build C extensions on Windows, not about why the
CPython Windows installer doesn't bundle pywin32 the way ActiveState
(and, IIRC, Enthought) do. The Python 3 series defines a stable ABI
(PEP 384) that eliminates that restriction.

As far as the original question goes, Mark Hammond would be the person
in the best position to answer that. I don't know much about how
pywin32 development works, and I'm not sure any of the other core devs
do, either. The 'pywin32' web presence is fragmented enough that it
isn't easy to find out more. (The SF project pages are at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/ and there seems to be some
discussion at http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-win32,
but there's all sorts of stale information floating around which means
that Google doesn't help much, either)

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia