[Numpy-discussion] Possible solution to binary distributionproblems for numpy on linux?

[David Cournapeau]

Hi there,

    I came across an interesting post on Miguel De Icaza's blog this 
week-end:

    http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jan-26.html

    The build system used in opensuse is open sourced for a few weeks. 
The basic idea is that it provides a build farm to build packages for 
most major distributions, automatically, with automatic dependency 
tracking for rebuilding a package when its dependencies changed, etc... [1]

    My questions are:
       - does it seem interesting to numpy developers ? My impression is 
that binary distribution of numpy is a big problem for many linux users, 
and that is entry barrier for many users (I may be wrong, that's just an 
impression from the ML).
       - the registration requires agreement from the open build 
system's team for now. I would be interesting in trying this out, but I 
didn't want to "proclaim" myself as a numpy developer without consent 
from the numpy dev team.

    cheers,

    David

    [1]I have not studied throughly, but the idea is:
    - you submit the sources of your package +  a description file
    - you upload it to the build system
    - the build systeme consists in a build farm to build binary 
packages automatically for many distribution (including opensuse, Suse, 
fedora, ubuntu and debian; the biggest distribution in term of 
marketshare which are not there are slackware + gentoo, but I guess 
users of those distribution would know enough to compile packages 
themselves).
  
    Besides the build farm, some advantages are:
    - automatic rebuilding when one of the dependency changed (let's say 
the fortran compiler changed in debian -> numpy which depends on it 
would be rebuilt automatically)
    - a system for mirroring.

    The system is still in beta, and requires registration for trying it 
as a developer.