[Distutils] Library instability on PyPI and impact on OpenStack

[Daniel Holth]

On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> On Mar 04, 2013, at 06:11 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
>
>>My point of view is that the system Python is there primarily to run
>>system utilities and user scripts, rather than arbitrary Python
>>applications. Users can install alternate versions of software into
>>their user site directories, or into virtual environments. Projects
>>are, of course, also free to include part of their version number in
>>the project name.
>
> I have the same opinion, but it doesn't make developers very happy at all.
>
> Cheers,
> -Barry

Apple does (or did) something very useful by not including the stdlib
source code in OS X's builtin Python, making the system Python so
hilariously useless for development that no one would attempt it after
the trick has been discovered. After a few frustrating hours figuring
out what they've actually done it hits you "OH that Python is not for
me", you download a working version from python.org, and you're on
your way. :-P