[Pythonmac-SIG] My stab at a new page

Bill Janssen janssen at parc.com
Sun Feb 12 19:28:56 CET 2006


> > 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 won't happen. Replacing system components is completely wrong,
> what if someone finds a security bug in /usr/bin/python and Apple ships
> a security update to fix it [*]. The installer should update the user's
> path to ensure that our version of python is earlier on the PATH.

I guess that would be one way to get Apple to ship Python updates :-).

You missed the first part of my message, I think.  The system version
would be installed under /usr/libexec/, or some such place, not under
/usr/bin/.  That would leave /usr/bin free for the MacPython gang to
install its version, or at least a symlink to /usr/local/bin/pythonw.

Bill


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