[Distutils] Re: PEP 262: Database of Installed Python Packages

[M.-A. Lemburg]

"Mark W. Alexander" wrote:
> 
> Nicolas Chauvat asked:
> > >My last question: why should we have package management system
> > >"internal" to a Python installation. Isn't it the role of the
> > >distro to handle packages and should't we focus on helping out the
> > >existing distro tools deal with Python extensions instead?
> 
> Then Andrew asked:
> > What do we do for people on systems without packaging systems such
> > as DPKG or RPM?
> 
> I did a bdist_pkgtool for Solaris and a bdist_sdux for HP. The
> advantage that distutils gives me is that I can get a module and run
> setup.py for each architecture. After that, everything is native for
> whatever package system the OS uses. All python packages show up when
> I list installed packages through the native package manager
> interface. IIRC, the bdist_wininst is the same. Once installed,
> packages on Windows show up in Add/Remove programs just like any other
> installed component.
> 
> I think this is the way it should be.

+1.

Also +1 on adding more bdist_* package support e.g. bdist_deb
and an extended version of bdist_rpm to accomodate specific
settings for various RPM-based distros (if needed).

> We don't want to create another
> layer for admins to manage python packages. For example, if I didn't
> use native packages on Solaris and HP, but did on Linux, in order to
> automagically maintain an inventory of installed software on all
> machines, I'd have to "know" that on certain OS'es to query both the
> native package manager and the distutils DB. This places an extra
> burden on administrators should they chose (or be coerced) to support
> python package users on their systems.
> 
> If distutils is to help drive the growth of Python to other OS'es,
> then it needs to make package installation and maintence _exactly_ the
> same for any other packages on those OS'es. The way to do that is to
> grow the number of bdist commands until it equals the number of native
> package managers. By focusing on bdist commands, we don't have to
> have an "internal" python package management system, and we don't have
> to deal with non-Python oriented admins that don't care to deal with
> another way of installing and managing packages. ("Please install this
> package" is much more likely to be granted than "Can you build this
> binary for me?")

Right.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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