setuptools without unexpected downloads

[Diez B. Roggisch]

> I think most of the evolution has been in the surrounding tools,
> although stuff like the new Debian Python policy could be complicating
> factors. But I don't think the dependency stuff has changed that much
> over the years.

It might be, yet one thing is for sure: there have been various times in
debian in the last few year where for the sake of their own migration paths
to e.g. newere GCC-versions and the like a lot of seemingly "crude"
packages appeared, that catered to these needs. So it's not only about the
package form, one also has to take the actual distribution and even version
into consideration... seems daunting to me!

> My response here was mostly addressing the "global site-packages"
> issue since that's usually a big reason for people abandoning the
> system package/dependency management. If you can't find a new-enough
> system package, you have to either choose a local "from source"
> installation (which I would regard as a temporary measure for reasons
> given elsewhere with respect to maintenance), or to choose to
> repackage the upstream code and then install it through the system
> package manager, which I claim can be achieved in a non-global
> fashion.

Do I understand that correctly that essentially you're saying: if you want
your software released for a certain distro, package it up for it the way
it's supposed to be? I can understand that and said so myself - but then,
the whole setuptools-debate has come to an end.

Diez