Re: Proposed policy change to define but discourage Python wheels in Debian
On 16.05.2014 17:53, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> On Friday, May 16, 2014 11:28:45 Barry Warsaw wrote:
>> Here is the diff I propose to Debian Python policy, describing our policy on
>> packaging wheels.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Barry
>>
>> === modified file 'debian/python-policy.sgml'
>> --- debian/python-policy.sgml 2014-05-12 10:21:25 +0000
>> +++ debian/python-policy.sgml 2014-05-16 15:23:30 +0000
>> @@ -32,7 +32,11 @@
>> <name>Scott Kitterman</name>
>> <email>scott@kitterman.com</email>
>> </author>
>> - <version>version 0.9.5</version>
>> + <author>
>> + <name>Barry Warsaw</name>
>> + <email>barry@debian.org</email>
>> + </author>
>> + <version>version 0.9.6</version>
>>
>> <abstract>
>> This document describes the packaging of Python within the
>> @@ -468,6 +472,36 @@
>> programs included in the same package.
>> </p>
>> </sect>
>> + <sect id="wheels">
>> + <heading>Wheels</heading>
>> + <p>
>> + <url id="http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0427/";
>> + name="PEP 427">
>> + defines a built-package format called "wheels", which is a zip
>> + format archive containing Python code and a "dist-info" metadata
>> + directory, in a single file named with the .whl suffix. As zip
>> + files, wheels containing pure-Python can be put on sys.path and
>> + modules in the wheel can be imported directly by Python's
>> "import" + statement. (Importing extension modules from wheels is
>> not yet + supported as of Python 3.4.)
>> + </p><p>
>> + The use, building, and inclusion of wheels in binary packages is
>> + strongly discouraged. A very limited set of wheel packages are
>> + available in the archive, but these support the narrow purpose of
>> + providing the Python 3 built-in virtual environment creation +
>> executable <prgn>pyvenv-3.x</prgn>, as well as the
>> + within-venv <prgn>pip</prgn> executable, in a Debian policy
>> + compliant way.
>> + </p><p>
>> + Wheels supporting <prgn>pyvenv</prgn> and <prgn>pip</prgn> are
>> named + with the <var>python-</var> prefix, and the
>> <var>-wheels</var> + suffix, e.g.
>> <package>python-chardet-wheels</package>. When + these binary
>> packages are installed, their .whl files should be + placed in the
>> /usr/share/python-wheels directory. Such wheels + should be built
>> with the <tt>--universal</tt> flag so as to generate + wheels
>> compatible with both Python 2 and Python 3.
>> + </p>
>> + </sect>
>> <sect id="package_names">
>> <heading>Module Package Names</heading>
>> <p>
>
> I good start. I think "strongly discouraged" is too weak. I think it should
> be a must not except the packages needed for pyvenv/pip and all those packages
> should be explicitly listed (so that it takes an update to policy to make it
> policy OK to add more wheels.
>
I think the text should contain why it is "strongly discouraged". It is
not clear to me from this text.
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