[Distutils] Need for respect (was: PEP 438, pip and --allow-external)

[Noah Kantrowitz]

On May 14, 2014, at 1:26 PM, "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:

> On 14.05.2014 21:48, Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
>> 
>> On May 14, 2014, at 12:44 PM, "M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> PyPI is still mainly the Python registry for mapping package
>>> names to URLs and descriptions.
>> 
>> Sorry, going to have to stop you here. This, and all your conclusions based on this assumption, are flat out incorrect. You are far far far in the minority of people that think this is what PyPI is. It was this at one point, but few old-timers are still around to remember those days and new users have very different expectations driven by the cites linux package servers/systems as well as tools like rubygems and cpan.
> 
> Noah, please reread the subject line and the message that started
> this thread. If we want to have a useful discussion, calling someone's
> conclusion incorrect is not helpful.

I think it is helpful, as you are working under different initial conditions than most others, and as such it is very hard to compare conclusions.

> 
> If you'd read my reply to the end, you'd have noticed that my main
> point is that the users want easy installation of packages and don't
> care where these are hosted.
> 
> This is why installers are attractive to users and this is also why
> so many people enjoy using them.
> 
> However, such a requirement does not imply that all packages
> have to be hosted in a single place, with all the implications
> that arise from such a setup.
> 
> Coming back to PyPI: Its main purpose is having a central place to
> register, search for and find packages. It doesn't matter where the
> distribution files are hosted, as long as the installers can find them.

I understand you think that is the purpose of PyPI, but I'm trying to tell you that the people that work on PyPI and pip do not share this opinion, and as such it can be considered incorrect. I would urge you to please rebase your goals on what that actual development plans for PyPI are, which very much include package hosting.

--Noah

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