Open Stack

On 12/04/2012 02:06 PM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Sascha Peilicke wrote:
>> Currently, the majority of OpenStack components make use of the
>> Python module "setuptools_git" in order to install additional
>> configuration files. This is basically the same functionality that
>> the MANIFEST.in file (setuptools/distribute) provides, but
>> automatic.
> Note: This is a development topic, it should (have) be(en) posted to
> openstack-dev to reach the appropriate audience. Please follow-up there.
>
>> However, we recently discovered that this approach has issues from
>> a packaging perspective. We weren't getting all the data/config
>> files that the python package usually gets even though we were
>> running the same commands:
>>
>> $ python setup.py build
>>
>> followed by:
>>
>> $ python setup.py install --skip-build
>>
>> We are building RPM packages from release tarballs (such as [1]),
>> which of course don't include the .git directory. Therefore the
>> setuptools_git approach can't do its magic, thus our package builds
>> get wrong results. Having OpenStack components rely on
>> setuptools_git at build time means we have to distribute the whole
>> git repository along with the source code tarball. Of course this
>> makes no sense, since it would increase the size of release
>> tarballs dramatically and won't get shipped in distributions
>> anyway.Therefore, we (and potentially other distribution vendors)
>> would have to track these files manually in our RPM spec files.
>> Some reviews have already been opened on the topic (admittedly
>> before we discovered the real issue). Given the different outcome
>> of each review it seems that not everybody is aware that
>> setuptools_git is used or of what it does.
>>
>> https://review.openstack.org/#/c/17122/ (ceilometer) - this one
>> got accepted before we knew what was going on
>>
>> https://review.openstack.org/#/c/17347/ (cinder) - abandoned until
>> the situation is clarified
>>
>> https://review.openstack.org/#/c/17355/ (nova) - rejected
>>
>> So the better solution would be to stop using setuptools_git and
>> just include all the data/config files that are meant to be
>> distributed in the MANIFEST.in file. This is what every Python
>> developer should know about and has the benefit of increased
>> transparency about what gets installed and what not. We created a
>> blueprint to track this [2].
>>
>> Thoughts?
> A bit of history here:
>
> We used to rely on MANIFEST.in to list all files, but people routinely
> forgot to add new files to it. Apparently "every Python developer"
> doesn't know (or care) about this. The end result was that we
> discovered very late (sometimes after the release itself) that we
> built incomplete tarballs. As a quick search[1] shows, I have
> personally filed 27 bugs so far on the subject, so it's not a corner case.
>
> [1] http://bit.ly/TDim7U
>
> Relying on setuptools_git instead allows to avoid that issue
> altogether. The projects that adopted it became a non-issue. The
> projects that didn't adopt it yet are still a problem. I was about to
> push setuptools_git support to projects that don't use it yet.
>
> In summary, I would hate it if we went back to the previous situation.
> I'm not personally attached to setuptools_git, but any proposed
> replacement solution should keep its simplicity.
>

Maybe a solution could be to add a Jenkins hook for re-generating the 
MANIFEST.in file after each commit? Just like we currently have for 
updating the contributors email list?

We could use setuptools_git for that, since it can also be run as a 
script [1].

-Ionuț

[1] 
https://github.com/ygingras/setuptools-git/blob/master/setuptools_git.py#L61