[Python-Dev] PEP 376 - Open questions

[Eric Smith]

> Eventually, I'd like PEP 376 to support system packagers too. So for 
> example, if you did "apt-get install python-pyqt4", then running "pip 
> install python-pyqt4" should return without installing anything .. as 
> RECORD will be part of the .deb previously installed. As for generating 
> the RECORD file, I vote for generating it during install time (w/ 
> absolute paths).

I think we should explicitly not support this. What if pip and apt-get 
(or rpm, or others) install the same package in different places because 
of system conventions (/usr vs. /usr/local vs. /opt, say)? There's no 
way we're ever going to get this right, and it's not worth complicating 
our lives over it.

Seriously: Is there some real world use case I'm missing? Does any 
existing install system support this?