Time for a Python "distribution" ? was:Not enough Python library development

[Paul Prescod]

Chris Barker wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
>...
> 
> My proposal is to create a Python "Distribution" that includes a large
> collection of what are becoming standard modules, but are maintained by
> folks other than the core Python team. I'm modeling this idea on the
> Linux Distributions: the kernel developers don't make any effort to
> package up Linux as a useful system; other organizations do that. There
> are now a lot of them, and some are substantial commercial enterprises,
> but it all started with SLS and then Slackware, etc.

I'd suggest you take a look at this:

http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0206.html

We've discussed this often in the past. The difference between Python
and Linux is that people are either willing to wait almost indefinately
to download an operating system, or they buy it in CD. Python cannot get
that large. So you have to make choices about what goes in and what
stays out. These choices are inevitably controversial.  I think a better
solution is to make it as easy to install things as possible. For
instance, you mention these modules: "Numeric, mxTools, wxPython, and
PIL."

Here's what an ActivePython user does to install 3 out of 4 those
modules:

pyppm install Numeric
pyppm install egenix-mx-base
pyppm install PIL

wxPython is next on our list of modules to add. I think that this is a
more scalable solution than a "fat" Python build because we can include
as many modules as we can build.
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