Trying out a new way of packaging Python modules

[Felix Schwarz]

Hi David,

I have to say I'm a bit sceptic about adding more runtimes to one 
distribution [1]. This will increase the maintenance burden and the 
general packaging complexity with no real benefit to me.

Personally I (as a developer) find it easy enough to support Python 
2.4-2.6 in one software (and Python 2.3 is usually doable if really 
necessary). Therefore I don't feel the need to use a more recent version 
of Python e.g. for RHEL5.

To me the point of a distribution is to provide a selected set of 
software which works well together. If we ship other stacks, IMHO the 
point should be to just ship the interpreter, maybe setuptools but not 
all the modules. Speaking as a Python developer, the biggest pain is to 
compile Python itself. All the other stuff I can do with virtualenv.

So the question to me is: Is all the infrastructure work worth it? To me 
the answer is no but on on the other hand I'm just a single, not very 
active packager.

fs

[1] I see Python 2/3 as different languages that live side-by-side which 
is why I welcome the additional Python 3 stack wholeheartedly.