Open Stack

Excerpts from Robert Collins's message of 2015-08-20 15:24:03 +1200:
> We currently have a test where we ask if things are packaged in
> distros. http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/requirements/tree/README.rst#n268
> 
> I think we should modify that, in two ways.
> 
> The explanation for the question ignores a fairly large audience of
> deployers who don't wait for distributions - so they too need to
> package things, but unlike distributions packaging stuff is itself
> incidental to their business, rather than being it. So I think we
> should consider their needs too.
> 
> Secondly, all the cases of this I've seen so far we've essentially
> gone 'sure, fine'. I think thats because there's really nothing to
> them.
> 
> So I think the test should actually be something like:
> Apply caution if it is not packaged AND packaging it is hard.
> Things that make packaging a Python package hard:
>  - nonstandard build systems
>  - C dependencies that aren't already packaged
>  - unusual licences
> 
> E.g. things which are easy, either because they can just use existing
> dependencies, or they're pure python, we shouldn't worry about.
> 
> -Rob
> 

I think this interpretation is fine. It's more or less what I've been
doing anyway.

Is it safe to assume that if a package is available on PyPI and can be
installed with pip, packaging it for a distro isn't technically
difficult? (It might be difficult due to vendoring, licensing, or some
other issue that would be harder to test for.)

Doug