[Python-Dev] Distutils ML wrap-up: setup.cfg new format

[P.J. Eby]

At 07:00 PM 9/23/2009 +0200, Tarek Ziadé wrote:
>While it's great to have Philipp being part of our distutils design
>discussions,
>for his experience, I am not concerned of not having him in this "internal
>consensus" since Setuptools is not maintained anymore.
>
>He said some months ago, he would work on a brand new setuptools
>version with zero
>dependency to distutils. But it's still vaporware (from his own
>words), and the previous version is unmaintained for a year, so it was
>forked.

Here's what actually happened, if anyone cares.  Tarek and friends 
announced a fork of setuptools.  I reviewed the work and saw that -- 
for the most part -- I was happy with it, and opined as how I might 
be willing to bless the the "package inquisition" team as official 
maintainers of the 0.6 branch of setuptools, so that I could work on 
the fun bits I've long planned for 0.7, but never felt free to start 
on while there was so much still needing to be done on 0.6.

However, just as I mentioned this, and suggested an option for what I 
could do that would be helpful to his Distribute 0.7 project as well 
as various other tools (e.g. implementing some of Jim Fulton's 
long-requested features for better modularization of setuptools), 
Tarek accused me of somehow trying to undermine his plans.

In addition, it appears Tarek was also offended by my earlier 
statement that there were only a few people in the Python community 
who had *already* earned my implicit trust to not only hack on 
setuptools unsupervised, but also to take over its *future* direction 
and BDFL-ship.  (For example, Jim Fulton and Ian Bicking.)

Tarek, however, appears to have taken this to mean that I personally 
thought he was an incompetent programmer or something (when I 
actually had no opinion one way or the other), and ever since he has 
taken to levelling potshots like the above at me on a semi-regular basis.

I've tried to ignore this and play nice, because he is actually 
working on this stuff and I am not.  But it's hard for me to actually 
give any help in practice, if Tarek is too busy projecting hidden 
plots onto everything I say and do.

If you read Tarek's distutils-sig posts, it appears my 
already-existing trust in Ian and Jim was not only a personal insult 
to Tarek, but also a plot to ensure that nobody with any time to do 
so would ever work on setuptools, just as my excitement about working 
on setuptools again was a plot to steal thunder from his fork.

All I want is for good stuff to happen for setuptools users and 
Python users in general, so I don't think all the suspicion and 
backbiting is merited.  I certainly don't appreciate it, and I would 
like it to stop.  It also isn't even relevant to the thread, since my 
lack of work on setuptools says exactly zero about the merits or lack 
thereof of Tarek's proposals for the distutils!

Hell, I *support* the bulk of Tarek's setup.cfg proposal, and don't 
even object to him Pronouncing it or cutting off the discussion!  My 
only issue on Python-Dev was his inaccurate implication that it was a 
SIG consensus rather than a pronouncement on it.  There is and was no 
need for any of this to get personal, and I have continually strived 
to keep my posts here and distutils-sig civil, even when I didn't 
feel like being civil in response to Tarek's jabs.  I have in fact 
bent over backwards to be *nice* to Tarek, because he seemed so damn 
sensitive about everything.  Apparently, however, this does not 
actually help things.  :-(