Should setuptools version propagate to a module's __version__? If so, how?

[John Ladasky]

I just came across a package in PyPI which is in a state of neglect.  The official version on the PyPI page is 1.3.1 -- but the installed module reports its version as 1.2.0.  This is confusing.

There are several bugs in this package besides the mismatched version number.  I've forked a copy of the package on GitHub, and I will attempt a cleanup.

In another private package of my own, I performed an unsavory hack in setup.py.  There is a "version" argument to the setup() call.  I define "version" as a global variable in setup.py.  Before I call setup with this version number, I also modify the line of package code which defines its __version__.  This works for me, but it feels wrong.

Is there a recommended way to keep the internal reference and the setup.py reference in sync?  Is there any reason someone would NOT want these numbers to match?

Thanks for your input.