Re: upstream python concerns, python3-full package for bullseye

[Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org>]

Hi,

Looks like once more I've been not able to express myself clearly enough
in the first message. Hopefully, what's bellow contain *all* of my
thoughts, and that it brings value to this thread.

On 2/12/21 9:30 AM, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Feb 2021, Thomas Goirand wrote:
>> What I read from Elana, is that *upstream* think we have a problem. But
>> do we really have one? Or are we just being influenced by upstream who
>> is trying to impose a view we don't necessary share?
> 
> Or is it you that is trying to impose your view on those users?
> 
> Let's be clear, I understand what you are saying and I mostly agree
> with your view but Debian is about inclusiveness and about meeting
> the needs of as many people as possible and I believe that implementing
> this python3-full meta-package can only help towards this.

I mostly agree to add a metapackage. I just don't agree with the choice
of package name. It makes our user believe that Python isn't "full"
without it, and they then may install it when they don't need it to
consume whatever is packaged in Debian. Reality is different.

Also, it's a disservice to push our users into the direction of using
venv which is very ugly way to use Python in a Debian system, outside of
just testing something. You then end up with a variety of versions of
things pulled by pip, which are quickly unmanageable. That's why we do
package Python modules, and make sure they work well together
(sometimes, patching them to achieve this goal).

So, by all means, let's create a metapackage, and call it
"python3-addons-that-upstream-thinks-make-python-full" or anything you
like, but not just "python3-without-this-package-python-is-not-full",
misguiding our users to install venv and distutils which they don't need
if they are consuming only Python for things that we package already.

I'm also concerned that this is useful at all. If someone wants to use
venv, 2to3 or setuptools, I believe they will know how to fetch them...

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)