On Thu, 2012-09-27 at 18:12 +0200, Jan Matejek wrote:
Fellow packagers and pythonistas,
i'd like to notify you about a proposed change to the way Python installs its packages, and give you a chance to object before it is put into effect.
This has nothing to do with the "versioned python" proposal.
TL;DR version: Currently, python is configured to install packages into /usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages, unless you specify "--prefix=/usr". This mimicks autotools behavior, but diverges from upstream. If there are no significant objections, I'm going to restore the default behavior where "/usr" is the default prefix.
Packages installed in /usr/local will still be recognized, it just won't be the default install location anymore.
Jan, Two ways to look at it: - A user on a standard systems downloads a tarball and does the whole magic... likely with very few knowledge or just following bare documentation => This needs to go to /usr/local (as it's a locally built / locally installed package) - A packaged prepared a spec file with all the fancy stuff => this needs to go to /usr for autotools, this is nicely handled using the %configure macro, which includes --prefix and anything else the packager would need to pass, but, as every packager, is too lazy to type or even remember (me included). I tend to very often make good use of that: build something locally from source, have it install to /usr/local (which I tend to keep clean)... once my tests are completed, I can just wipe /usr/local again, do the right fix in the real packages and live happily ever after... now splitting it off to /usr/local would mean that I have to trace installs and remove them (ok, likely not an issue, as I tend not to do a lot of python stuff :P ) But of course, the argument against it, carrying a patch, is a very compelling one. The right decision? Tough one... The "Upstream" way is usually preferred by me (I also hate to carry patches).. so in this case... I don't know :( Dominique -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-packaging+owner@opensuse.org