[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 9, 2006, at 7:24 PM, Bill Janssen wrote:

>> Could a Mac ever ship with an
>>> acceptable pre-installed Python?  If not, perhaps the solution for
>>> Apple is to move /usr/bin/python to some other spot, like
>>> /usr/libexec/, or some such place.
>>
>> The issue of not being able to produce redistributable applications
>> still exists, and also backwards compatibility with previous versions
>> of Mac OS X.
>
> So you're saying that the pre-installed version could never be really
> acceptable.  In that case, perhaps we only need convince Apple to move
> /usr/bin/python to some more system-y place that wouldn't usually be
> on users' paths.
>
> We then in the MacPython world take the position that Python isn't
> really pre-installed on Macs, and the place for a person to start
> would be to download the installer and run it.  Perhaps then in
> addition the installer could symlink /usr/local/bin/pythonw to
> /usr/bin/python, thereby solving the PATH issue.

That's not an acceptable solution.  We need to support versions of OS  
X that currently exist, and we can't depend on Apple to do anything.

-bob