Test suite in github but missing from pypi tarballs

[Edward Betts <edward@4angle.com>]

Recently I've come across some Python libraries that have a test suite in
their github repo but don't include it in the tarball they upload to pypi.

Debian binary packages don't normally include the test suite. Some Python
library developers are treating the pypi releases in a similar way, as if
they're just for deployment. They think anybody who needs the test suite is
doing development and will clone from the github repo.

It is very useful to run the test suite when building a Debian package. It
would be better if upstream would include the test suite in their release
tarballs.

It is often just a one line change to MANIFEST.in to have the test suite
included. If the tests are in a directory called 'tests', then this is the
line that needs to added:

  recursive-include tests *.py

I've been sending github pull requests to encourage library authors to make
this change.

  https://github.com/RPi-Distro/python-gpiozero/pull/284
  https://github.com/john-kurkowski/tldextract/pull/97

You might want to take a few minutes to check any Python packages you've
worked on, see if there is a test suite in the github repo that hasn't made it
to the release tarball and send a pull request to fix it.

It is also good thing to check when making a new Debian package.
-- 
Edward.