[Distutils] Distribute without 2to3

[Vinay Sajip]

I'm testing a branch of Python which provides out-of-the-box ability to create
virtual enviroments à la virtualenv, and as part of that testing I have to
install Distribute in newly created environments a lot. Though normally running
2to3 as part of the Distribute installation is not a big deal, for this testing
I'm doing, it does slow things down a little.

While waiting for some tests to finish, I thought I might as well look into
whether Distribute could be made to run on 2.x and 3.x from a single code base,
thereby avoiding the 2to3 step.

I've made an attempt, and things seem to have gone reasonably smoothly: the
conversion is done and all unit tests pass on 2.7, 3.2, 3.3 (my branch).

The converted Distribute is at

https://bitbucket.org/vinay.sajip/distribute3

In case any of you are interested at taking a look, I'd welcome any feedback you
have.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip