[Distutils] Platform specific destinations in wheel files?

[Paul Moore]

On 23 December 2013 20:53, Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
> then you explicitly put in "bin", sbin", "share", whatever?
>
> This seems really klunky to me, and also forces platform dependence, and is
> fundamentally tied to how posix does things....
>
> Maybe it's not possible, but I suggest that we could pre-define the
> locations that might be needed:

Agreed. My biggest concern with this whole idea is that developers
(typically POSIX developers, but it applies equally to all) will
*think* they need something like sbin because they are used to the
concept from their environment, and so write their wheel to use it and
hence be platform specific. However, with a little thought (possibly
hardly any thought in the case of sbin :-)) they could have chosen a
more generic approach which makes their project available to users of
other platforms.

This has been a very common issue historically, and I'm very reluctant
to add anything that makes it easier to limit usability of packages
across platforms. Portable by default should be the principle.

But I see there is a need, and I understand that practicality beats
purity. Let's just make sure that it's more effort to use the
platform-specific approach than not to, so it doesn't become an
attractive nuisance.

BTW, I like your idea of defining generic locations - but in the past
efforts to do this have been doomed to death by bikeshedding and
platform wars. So while I agree in principle, I fear it may not happen
in practice :-(

Paul