ubuntu dist-packages

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Paul Boddie wrote:

> On 26 Aug, 17:48, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+n... at snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>
>> Well, if you are thinking about Debian Linux, it's not as much
>> "ripping out" as "splitting into a separate package with a non-obvious
>> name". Annoying at times, but hardly an atrocity.
> 
> Indeed. Having seen two packages today which insisted on setuptools,
> neither really needing it, and with one actively trying to download
> stuff from the Internet (fifteen seconds warning - how generous!) when
> running setup.py, it seems to me that it isn't the distribution
> packagers who need to be re-thinking how they install Python software.
> 
> Generally, distributions have to manage huge amounts of software and
> uphold reasonable policies without creating unnecessary maintenance.
> Sadly, until very recently (and I'm still not entirely sure if there's
> really been an attitude change) the Pythonic packaging brigade has
> refused to even consider the needs of one of the biggest groups of
> consumers of the upstream code. Consequently, distributions will
> always devise different ways of storing installed Python software,
> documentation and resources, mostly because the Pythonic tools have
> been deficient, particularly in the management of the latter
> categories.

You mean it's the problem of the python packaging that it can't deal with
RPMs, debs, tgzs, OSX bundles, MSIs and
<put-in-the-next-big-packaging-thing-here>? 

Multiplied by the various packaging philosophies the respective distros
build based on these have?

I'm a Python-developer. I develop libraries and tools for Python, and want
others to be able to install these  - as I want to install things *other*
python developers created.

Setuptools let's me do that (most of the time. And I mean most).

If somebody thinks he wants to include these in whatever form he prefers -
fine with me. But it's hardly *my* problem, or that of the Python world in
general, to fulfill the requirements some other people come up with. 


Diez