[Distutils] Changing the way we use the PEP process (redux)

[Nick Coghlan]

On 22 January 2016 at 16:58, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've posted about this idea to the list before, but this time I've
> finally started working on it and have a concrete plan to discuss :)
>
> The basic idea:
>
> * I want to progressively move the active interoperability
> specifications out of PEPs and into a subsection of
> packaging.python.org
> * packaging PEPs would then become a tool for changing those
> specifications, rather than the specifications themselves
> * the description of this process would be captured along with the
> rest of the PyPA operational docs at pypa.io
> * there's a draft PR to start down this path at
> https://github.com/pypa/pypa.io/pull/12
>
> That PR provides an example of the potential benefits of this approach
> - it's able to state which parts of PEP 345 have been superseded by
> other PEPs, and also note the "Provides-Extra" field which exists as a
> de facto standard, despite not being formally adopted through the PEP
> process.
>
> However, having written the draft PR entirely against pypa.io, I've
> now gone back to thinking packaging.python.org would be a better fit
> for the actual hosting of the agreed specifications - the "python.org"
> domain is a vastly better known one than "pypa.io", and being on a
> subdomain of python.org more clearly establishes these
> interoperability specifications as the Python Packaging counterparts
> to the Python Language Reference and Python Library Reference.
>
> So my next iteration will be split into two PRs: one for pypa.io
> defining the specification management process, and one for
> packaging.python.org adding a specifications section

I implemented the split into two PRs:

Process PR: https://github.com/pypa/pypa.io/pull/14
Specifications PR: https://github.com/pypa/python-packaging-user-guide/pull/213

Absent any strong outcry, I'll merge these tomorrow, and we can
continue to tweak the spec maintenance process from there.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia