several distutils packaging questions

[Tavis Rudd]

Hi,
I've got a few questions about distutils:

1) Is there any easy way to use distutils to allow third-party
developers to install sub-packages of an already installed package
using their own setup.py script?

For example, I have a package called 'ThePackage' installed in
/usr/local/lib/pythonXXX/site-packages/ThePackage.  I want to install
'ASubPackage' to /usr/local/lib/pythonXXX/site-packages/ThePackage/ASubPackage
using separate setup.py. The 'extra_path' option adds 'ThePackage.pth'
to site-packages, which is not what I want.  Is there another way?

2) Is the .pth convention a feature that's here for the long-haul or a
hack for backwards compatibility that might be deprecated?

Cheers,
Tavis