[Distutils] People want CPAN :-)

[David Cournapeau]

Ben Finney wrote:
> Rakotomandimby Mihamina <mihamina at gulfsat.mg> writes:
>
>   
>> For example, debian packaging what is on pypi must be straighforward.
>> (same for RPM based distribution and other systems)
>>     
>
> Packaging for Debian is much more about following the policy, which
> deliberately involves human intervention and judgement, and can't very
> well be automated. RPM, as I understand it, is more lax and a simple RPM
> can be generated quite automatically.
>   

A .deb can also be automated up to a certain level. Even for packages
like numpy, there is not much needed. Also, the official debian policy
is mandatory for adoption into official repositories - but if I need to
push a simple .deb to colleagues for a new package of mine, I don't
want/need to spend that much time. For example, if distutils were to
support the --*dir options of autoconf plus all the related metadata to
tag files accordingly, it would make the task quite simple.

Even for complex package, this would make packaging and package update
simpler for package maintainer. If I look at the debian dir for the
numpy package (in Ubuntu), there is really not much needed: the .install
files to tag which files to install for which package, adding debian
specific files (README.debian and co). Most of it if not all could be
removed with the corresponding distutils support (which would not be
.deb specific in any way, and would help rpm, .pkg and even  windows
packaging as well though .e.g. nsis files).

David