[Python-Dev] Package install failures in 2.6.3 (original) (raw)

Brett Cannon brett at python.org
Mon Oct 5 20:21:01 CEST 2009

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 08:44, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:

On Oct 5, 2009, at 10:50 AM, Tarek Ziadé wrote:

If, as I hope, the answer to that is "yes", then I strongly support

releasing a fixed setuptools instead of reverting the change to Python.

Yes it does. Excellent, thanks. The fix makes sure buildext.getextfilename still works as it is supposed (just returning the extension of a filename depending on the environment) under all versions, and continues to do extra work for the Setuptools internal needs when it is called by Setuptools itself on various places. It's two lines in Setuptools. But beware that a new Setuptools release might take a few months and maybe will never happen. That is why a suggested solution was to install Distribute, because it addresses among other bug fixes, this one. I think we have two other choices. 2) PJE releases a new version of setuptools that fixes this problem. 3) We (a.k.a. Tarek with our blessing) hijacks the setuptools name (e.g. on cheeseshop) and releases a new version I still hope #2 happens, but let's have a deadline for when the more drastic measures will be taken.

Or we VERY clearly and loudly state in the release notes and anywhere else we can that Distribute has replaced setuptools and everyone should upgrade immediately because of critical bugs like the one under discussion.

I should also mention this bug was not unknown. I discovered it after Distribute 0.6 was released as I always run cutting edge interpreters. Never bothered to report it until Distribute 0.6.1 was released which Tarek fixed in less than a week. I never bothered to report it for setuptools as I know it isn't maintained.

It's probably in our best interest to just get people over to Distribute, let it continue to hijack setuptools, and slowly let that name fade out if it is going to continue to be unmaintained. I have to admit I find it really disheartening that we are letting an unmaintained project dictate how we fix a bug. I really hope this is a one-time deal and from this point forward we all move the community towards Distribute so we never feel pressured like this again.

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