[SciPy-dev] issues with scipy and eggs

[Fernando Perez]

Robert Kern wrote:

> Well, there's the problem with the __init__.py's from full scipy overwriting
> scipy_core's during a regular install. As Andrew suggested, we can simply have
> synced copies in both packages. To do that *right*, we need some SVN magic
> (svn:external?).

Mmh, I hadn't noticed this because I've been building from source so far.  Is 
this going to be problematic for package managers?  From what I've seen, rpm 
does not like packages which overwrite files in other packages (though there 
may be directives to tweak that), I don't know what apt-get does in this case.

I think that ease of integration into rpm/deb/fink packaging systems should be 
in our radar, as it does have an impact on how easy it becomes for new users 
to jump on board.  Now that Fedora Extras is growing and is official (and 
since it carries even ATLAS), and with Ubuntu making such excellent inroads on 
the desktop, it would be very good to have soon the ability to tell all 
Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/Fink users to simply

[yum|apt-get] install scipy matplotlib

and be done with a basic 'matlab-like' system.  This also means that 
we/Enthought doesn't need to commit any resources to (as has been proposed in 
the past) keeping yum repos around, since instead the distro's own mechanisms 
will handle it out of the box.

While I know that it doesn't cover 100% of the audience (native OSX and win32, 
other linux distros, other *nix variants), it does cover a significant enough 
chunk of it to be, I think, worth catering to.

Cheers,

f