[Python-Dev] [Pydotorg] Should we help pythonmac.org? (original) (raw)

Joe Smith unknown_kev_cat at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 21 23:55:11 CEST 2008

"Jesse Noller" <jnoller at gmail.com> wrote in message news:4222a8490808191344y6af0b4a3pe7f99dcd263e162e at mail.gmail.com...

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Bill Janssen <janssen at parc.com> wrote:

> My understanding is that if there is a system Python, you shouldn't > change it. Ever.

Huge, big, honkin' +1 from me on that. Besides, for a system Python, you want your distribution to manage packages, not setuptools, otherwise you confuse -- and probably break -- your system. I find this discussion fascinating. I install new packages into my system Python all the time, with "/usr/bin/python setup.py install", and that includes setuptools. I've got PIL, ReportLab, Twisted, Xlib, appscript, docutils, email-4.0.1, fuse, PyLucene, medusa, mutagen, roman, setuptools, and SSL installed in the Leopard machine I'm writing from. They don't wind up in /System/Library/.../site-packages/, they wind up in /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/, which is sort of the right place, from an Apple point of view. I do this on lots of Macs -- I've got a regular posse of them at work. And I've never had any problems with it. I agree that there are some things I'd be very wary of installing into the system Python, like PyObjC, and Zope. Usually, I don't install anything which appears to already be there. Bill Bill is correct - using /usr/bin/python does install packages to /Library/... - this is sort of the right place because it still installs it to a "system path", where it can side-effect other users, but it is a "mostly correct" way for Apple framework installs.

/Library is system-wide, yes, but not system-reserved. /System/Library/ is system-wide and system reserved.

Just like on most distros (LFS and some older distros excluded): /usr/ is system-wide and system-reserved. /usr/local/ is sytem-wide, but not system-reserved.

Computer admins are supposed to install into /Library/ or /usr/local/.

The only possible problem of installing new Python modules into /Library/ is if any system Python scripts that depend on exact versions of libraries shipped in /System/Library/, but were not crafted as to ignore /Library/. That can be problematic, and arguablly a bug in the script, but Apple does not tend to fix those bugs that quickly.

(OS bugs is one area where Apple's traditional secrecy is a bad thing. More transparency in bug fixing can only be an improvement.)

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