[Catalog-sig] V4 Pre-PEP: transition to release-file hosting on PYPI

[holger krekel]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:15 -0400, PJ Eby wrote:
> Do we even need the internal/external rel info?  I was planning to
> just use the URL hostname.
> 
> i.e., are there any use cases for designating an externally-hosted
> file internal, or an internally-hosted file external?  If not, it
> seems the rel="" is redundant.
> 
> It's also more work to implement, vs. just defaulting --allow-hosts to
> be the --index-url host; a strategy ISTM pip could also use, since it
> has the same two options available.
> 
> Also, if we're not doing homepage/download crawling any more, I was
> hoping we could just drop the code that 'parses' rel="" links in the
> first place, as it's an awkward ugly hack.  ;-)

We wanted to avoid requiring hostname-checking especially in light of
parallel developments putting PYPI release files on a CDN, i.e.  non
pypi.python.org domains.  The "rel=internal" communicates that this link
is under control of the index server and the installer should not be
worried and users need not know about allow-hosts etc.  For example,
Donald's https://crate.io is already operating in this manner and has
its files on crate-cdn.com.

best,
holger