Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed7.news.xs4all.nl!news.dns-netz.com!news.freedyn.net!aioe.org!bofh.it!news.nic.it!robomod From: Thomas Goirand Newsgroups: linux.debian.maint.python Subject: Re: upstream python concerns, python3-full package for bullseye Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2021 01:20:01 +0100 Message-ID: References: X-Original-To: Elana Hashman , debian-python@lists.debian.org X-Mailbox-Line: From debian-python-request@lists.debian.org Fri Feb 12 00:11:25 2021 Old-Return-Path: X-Amavis-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.445 tagged_above=-10000 required=5.3 tests=[BAYES_00=-2, DIGITS_LETTERS=1, LDO_WHITELIST=-5, NICE_REPLY_A=-0.105, SARE_MLH_Stock10=1.66] autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Policyd-Weight: using cached result; rate: -3.5 Organization: Debian User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.7.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/18977 List-ID: List-URL: List-Archive: https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/5c9a9365-20b9-c600-638c-6c74a024779a@debian.org Approved: robomod@news.nic.it Lines: 51 Sender: robomod@news.nic.it X-Original-Cc: doko@debian.org, stefanor@debian.org X-Original-Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2021 01:11:07 +0100 X-Original-Message-ID: <5c9a9365-20b9-c600-638c-6c74a024779a@debian.org> X-Original-References: <20210211181234.GA4829@silverpine> Xref: csiph.com linux.debian.maint.python:13194 Hi Elana, Thanks for bringing this topic in the channel, and speaking with the Python Steering Council, plus Mathias and Stefano. That's very much appreciated. On 2/11/21 7:12 PM, Elana Hashman wrote: > - When users install Python, it should be easy to install all required > modules for what upstream considers core, including venv, distutils, > and lib2to3. I understand that upstream python guys probably think the way to consume python stuff is through venv, pip, and setuptools. I have a very different view on this, and probably I'm not alone. We (Debian people) indeed prefer if our user can enjoy a packaged versions of things if they are available (and that's not specific to Python). In such a packaged environment, venv and distutils are useless, as the distribution is taking care of all what these tools would do without apt or dpkg. I do prefer my system to *not* have venv support, for example. So indeed, it's a good thing to *not* include distutils and venv by default when someone installs python. As for lib2to3, is this a joke? Lib2to3 is a complete failure to begin with. Upstream python developer naively thought everyone would just switch at once to Python3, but it never happened, which is why things like six exist (ie: to bring a layer of compatibility between python 2 and 3 during the transition). Also, since we got rid of Python 2, is this a (naive) call to bring a library that could convert old code which nobody cared to port in time? This also will be a failure, IMO. Lib2to3 is just an utility, which has nothing to do on a standard user computer, unless they really know what it does and explicitly want to use it (and in that case, it's easy for them to fetch it). > I propose that we add a python3-full* metapackage for > bullseye. (*We can use a different name, but it must be a name not > currently in use.) Please do not add distutils, venv and lib2to3 in this python3-full metapackage. IMO that's falling into a design that isn't Debian. This would probably be best in a "python3-dev-full" or something similar, as from the distribution perspective, we see them as developer use only. Don't confuse our users so that they install something they don't need. Hoping that what I wrote is making sense, Cheers, Thomas Goirand (zigo)