[Python-Dev] Packaging and binary distributions for Python 3.3 (original) (raw)

Tim Golden mail at timgolden.me.uk
Thu Oct 13 21:28:40 CEST 2011

On 13/10/2011 19:36, Paul Moore wrote:

I don't really understand the benefits of bdistmsi over bdistwininst

Just commenting on this particular issue: in essence, the .MSI format is the Microsoft standard, something which is especially important for corporate rollouts. We're not particularly bureaucratic, but I recently had to bundle a small number of common extensions as .msi packages so they could be deployed easily onto our baseline machines.

I'm not saying that Python must have .msi support for this reason: if it didn't already, you could argue that it could be provided by corporates who needed this, or by 3rd party service providers, if only by providing light .msi wrappers round standard installers.

I'm completely overloaded at the moment, so I'm only following this thread at a distance but I did want to chime in in agreement with the points Paul's already made: Windows users expect executable binary installers; it's much harder to compile libraries on Windows even if you have a compiler; the integration with the OS package manager (Add/Remove Programs) is a benefit although not a sine qua non.

TJG

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