[Python-Dev] Raising objections

[Neal Norwitz]

On 4/19/06, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>
> I see a significant procedural difference between what happened
> for ctypes, elementtree, and pysqlite, as opposed to setuptools.
> For all these packages, there was
> 1. a desire of users to include it
> 2. an indication from the package maintainer that it's ok
>    to include the package, and that he is willing to maintain it
> 3. some discussion on python-dev, which resulted only in support
>    and no objection
> 4. some (other) committer who "approved" incorporation of the
>    library. In essence, that committer is a "second" for the
>    package inclusion.
>
> setuptools has 1 and 2, but fails on 3 and 4 so far. There is
> discussion now after the fact, but it results in objection.
>
> Now, I know that Neal Norwitz had asked him what the status
> is and when it will happen, but he apparently did not want
> to *approve* inclusion of that package. Likewise, Guido
> van Rossum (apparently) did not want to approve it, either
> (he just would not object).

I think Guido was more enthusiastic about it going in.  I want the
functionality, though have concerns about it.  These concerns are
based on my ignorance, I have never used setuptools nor looked at the
code.  I had these reservations for each of the packages we imported.

I plan to review the setuptools code.  Yes, I know it's 7k+ lines of
code.  It's near the top of my TODO list.  Summer of Code is the only
thing higher and that should not require too much time moving forward.

I will at least be familiar with the code.  I think if people have
specific concerns about the code, they should address them rather than
generalities.  I hope Phillip has or can easily write some doc that
will address the high-level or a roadmap.  I don't particularly care,
but others do.  I think it's reasonable to have and should be
relatively short (1-2 pages max IMO).

As for #3, there was some discussion and there was a chance for
objections, it just wasn't explicit.  So mistakes were made.  I will
try to ensure these issues are raised going forward and this problem
doesn't recur.  It's water under the bridge at this point.  I suspect
setuptools is the best we've got and the best we're gonna get.  It's
good enough to move forward.  While it may be a pain for some of us in
the short term, many users have asked for this for many years.  Let's
make it work.

n