[python-committers] Providing .tgz sources

[Steve Holden]

On 12/5/2010 10:11 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 13:06, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>>> Well, is it more popular because that is just what people are used to
>>> downloading or the first download link on the web page? Or is it
>>> because people fundamentally prefer tgz files over tar.bz2?
>>
>> These questions are difficult to answer with the download stats alone.
>> If you really want to know, we should setup a poll...
> 
> I could if people care, but I don't anyone does.
> 
>>
>>> Are there
>>> actual platforms that can't handle tar.bz2 but can handle tgz?
>>
>> That, in turn, is easy to answer: yes, there are. Certain Solaris
>> releases had gzip available (even though /usr/bin/tar wouldn't know
>> how to invoke it), but no bzip2 utility.
> 
> If these are Solaris platforms we support then that's fine and we
> should keep tgz files, but if these are platforms we no longer care
> about then I say the lives of release managers should be simplified by
> cutting tgz files.
> 
>>
>>> I'm
>>> willing to bet it's because of the download link order and has nothing
>>> to do with actual preference (especially since we don't state file
>>> size on the download page).
>>
>> Not sure what page you are looking at; on
>>
>> http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/
>>
>> we do.
> 
> I was actually looking at that page, but the size specifics are below
> the download links and are only noticeable if you scroll far enough
> down. I doubt I am the only person who has made that mistake.
> 
> -Brett
> 
>>
>>> Personally I don't know why we have both tgz and tar.bz2 other than
>>> tradition. I say trim it down to tar.bz2 for portability and move on
>>> to using a ustar-based tar.xz to be cutting edge and minimize download
>>> size overall while making it the first download option to make sure
>>> people notice it. I'd also vote for listing the file size on the
>>> download page, but that's just another step for release managers that
>>> I don't want to burden them with.
>>
>> You would also need to specify what page you refer to as "the download
>> page".
>>
Surely this is all bike shedding. Will anyone fail to download Python
because we don't offer a .xz foramt download? I sincerely doubt it. So
what do we gain by such an addition to compensate for the increasing
complexity to be faced during releases?

regards
 Steve
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