Hi all,
I'm a user who decided to read the mailing list and respond to argue against and maybe stop things I don't think will help users as much as you think.I think deprecating user site-packages is such a change.
That venvs exist doesn't mean most or even many people use them, even though I'm sure you and everyone you know does. I couldn't find usage statistics on short notice, do you have any?
As far as I understand it site-packages is the default location for all packages that are installed and as long as the packages that are installed aren't causing a conflict, there is no problem. I've never had a problem in six years of using python.
So I'd really like a more detailed break down of the troubles the existence of site packages causes and of the up- and downsides removing it would bring, before anything is decided.
Another point I'd like to raise is that even though it's a good idea to isolate programs with venvs for stability, development and sometimes maybe security, idk, the idea of having a shared pool of packages has benefits too, namely code reuse and their availability, for example when you're offline.
Also I don't really know why you would think it's necessary to force every user into venvs. The applications and users that do need their environments are free to use one after all.