Upstream packaging feedback

[Nick Coghlan]

I'll likely be helping to guide updates to the Python packaging format
standards over the coming months. While they won't hit the standard
library until 3.4, there will likely be third party tool support in
earlier versions (since the whole point of the exercise is to eliminate
the current implementation coupling to distutils and setuptools in
favour of better defined metadata standards for communication between
multiple tools).

The first step will be reviewing the status quo and then creating a
plausible road map (as well as describing current efforts for various
aspects). I've started on that here:
http://python-notes.boredomandlaziness.org/en/latest/pep_ideas/core_packaging_api.html

One thing I would *love* to be able to enable is adding support for
automatic mapping of PyPI distribution names (similar to what already
exists for Perl and CPAN) where (for example), a developer could just
write "Requires: python(south)" instead of having to figure out manually
the name of the appropriate RPM package in Fedora.

I believe that the new metadata fields defined in PEP 345 and PEP 426
should be enough to support that when generating a SPEC file from the
PyPI metadata.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan
Red Hat Infrastructure Engineering & Development, Brisbane