[Python-Dev] Why does Mac OS X python share site-packages with apple python? (original) (raw)

Ned Deily nad at acm.org
Mon Mar 5 18:44:41 CET 2012

In article <4F54C6C3.9040401 at netwok.org>, Éric Araujo <merwok at netwok.org> wrote:

Le 03/03/2012 22:57, Ned Deily a écrit : > The python.org OS X Pythons (and built-from-source framework builds) add > the Apple-specific directory to the search path in order to allow > sharing of installed third-party packages between the two. The interesting thing to me here is that Ned’s decision to allow sharing some installed distributions/packages on Mac OS X is (IIUC) diametrically opposed to the one made by Canonical developers when they invented the dist-packages directory for Debian and Ubuntu to prevent breaking the system Python by installing a distribution/package with a python.org/built-from-source Python installed under /usr/local.

Just to be clear, it wasn't my decision; this feature was added before I was a core developer. In any case, this is the opposite case: the system Python is not affected by this feature. It affects user-installed framework-build Pythons, such as those provided by python.org installers, allowing them to share distributions explicitly installed by the user with the system Pythons. It also does not share 3rd-party distributions included by Apple with the system Pythons. I'm +0 on it myself.

-- Ned Deily, nad at acm.org

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