[Pythonmac-SIG] Installing "fat" python extensions with distutils?

[matthias.oberlaender@daimlerchrysler.com]

We use the same (!) Python version in a mixed computing environment, i.e. 
we are having Linux, Mac and Windows XP.
And we push sharing code in an "ad hoc" fashion (in addition to the more 
"correct" but inert patterns involving cvs):

Whenever a collegue thinks some Python script or module might be of common 
interest, he/she will copy it to his personal directory located under a 
common root directory mounted writable on all platforms. This kind of 
"installation" has the benefit that everybody in our team gains immediate 
access, without prior pulling of sources from cvs and executing setup.py, 
etc.

So, many scripts can transparently work on all three platforms given that 
the common root directory is on each user's python search path. The 
imports of such scripts looks like this:

from arthur.utils import ... 
from bill.utils import ...

This scheme works very well for pure Python, but I would like to allow 
Python extensions, too,  i.e. those with ending "so" or "dll". (Extensions 
are mostly built using swig,) Unfortunetely, OS X and Linux share the same 
file type, but their content is a very different beast! This probably 
means that each extension must become a package with a code snippet in the 
 __init__ module redirecting to the appropriate shared library. Right?

Also I would rather use distutils than manual copying. 

So the qestion is: Can I configure my sources in an easy way that calling 
'setup.py install' multiple times on the indentical directory, but from 
different host types (Linux/Mac/Win) would produce a "fat" Python 
extension in an identical target directory?

Before I start fiddling around with distutils and use it in the wrong way, 
could anybody with enough experience be so kind and make some suggestions? 



Thanks,

Matthias