On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Stéphane Gaudreault <stephane@archlinux.org> wrote:
Setuptools is a popular method to make Python modules easier to install. However, it seems that the Setuptools author has been very slow to integrate bugfixes and there was almost no developement for a long period of time. Due to non-maintenance of Setuptools, the project has forked. Distribute is a compatible fork intended to replace Setuptools as the standard method for working with Python module distributions.
http://packages.python.org/distribute
Distribute uses the same module name than Setuptools package and also use the same API. Setuptools users do not have to change their code to use Distribute instead of Setuptools. Recent versions of Distribute also supports Python 3.
Most Linux distributions (Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora or Gentoo for example) have started shipping Distribute as their Setuptools module. After discussion with Allan, we decided to create the following Distribute packages :
* python2-distribute : An alternative to Setuptools (drop-in replacement). This package will work with Python 2.x. http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=42062
How many people use setuptools directly over pip (http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/python-pip/)? Currently pip depends on setuptools; I'm assuming it will be fine with distribute, and I suppose we could rename it at this time as well.
* python-distribute : The new "official" method to work with Python 3 modules. http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=29188 [citation needed]
Any objections to bring these packages to [extra] ? Nope, as long as you can resolve my questions. Are you planning on dropping setuptools completely?
-Dan