[Distutils] Current Python packaging status (from my point of view)

[Paul Moore]

On 3 November 2016 at 00:02, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anaconda has an overwhelming advantage on Windows, in that Continuum
> can bear the licensing liabilities enforced by the Intel Fortran
> compiler, and we can not.  We therefore have no license-compatible
> Fortran compiler for Python 3.5 - so we can't build scipy, and that's
> a full stop for the scipy stack.   I'm sure you know, but the only
> practical open-source option is mingw-w64, that does not work with the
> Microsoft runtime used by Python 3.5 [1].  It appears the only person
> capable of making mingw-w64 compatible with this runtime is Ray
> Donnelly, who now works for Continuum, and we haven't yet succeeded in
> finding the 15K USD or so to pay Continuum for his time.

Is this something the PSF could assist with? Either in terms of
funding work to get mingw-w64 working, or in terms of funding (or
negotiating) Intel Fortran licenses for the community?

Paul