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

Ned Deily nad at acm.org
Sun Oct 30 19:04:08 CET 2011

In article <CACac1F-cmbKryaGZrCawDNdM7-VN4Yjo99fbD9VVcCmbhcvutA at mail.gmail.com>, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

I'd like to reopen the discussions on how the new packaging module will handle/support binary distributions in Python 3.3. The previous thread (see http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2011-October/113956.html) included a lot of good information and discussion, but ultimately didn't reach any firm conclusions.

First question - is this a Windows only problem, or do Unix/MacOS users want binary support? My feeling is that it's not an issue for them, at least not enough that anyone has done anything about it in the past, so I'll focus on Windows here.

I haven't been following this discussion that closely but I'm rather surprised that the need for binary distributions for Python packages on non-Windows platforms would be in question. Just as on Windows, it's not a given that all Unix or Mac OS X end-user systems will have the necessary development tools installed (C compiler, etc) to build C extension modules. Today, the most platform-independent way of distributing these are with binary eggs: the individual binary eggs are, of course, not platform-independent but the distribution and installation mechanism is or should be. Sure, there are other ways, like pushing the problem back to the OS distributor (e.g. Debian, Red Hat, et al) or, as in the case of Mac OS X where there isn't a system package manager in the same sense, to a third-party package distributor (like MacPorts, Homebrew, or Fink). Or you can produce platform-specific installers for each platform which also seems heavy-weight.

Has anyone analyzed the current packages on PyPI to see how many provide binary distributions and in what format?

-- Ned Deily, nad at acm.org

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