> 
> And I've put multiple compromise proposals out there to begin
> mitigating the problem *now* (i.e. for non-updated versions of
> setuptools), and every time, the objection is, "no, we need to ban it
> all now, no discussion, no re-evaluation, no personal choice, everyone
> must do as we say, no argument".
> 
> And I don't understand that, at all.

There's not much to understand: external hosting of packages is *actively 
harmful*, period. End users of easy_install and pip *don't even realize* 99% of 
the time that these tools are following links off of PyPi and installing 
packages from random, probably insecure/non https locations all over the 
internet. Once they realize it they recoil in terror if they have any 
understanding of the implications.

Let me put this in different terms: out of the packages using external hosting: 
can you prove to me that 100% of them aren't compromised machines serving 
malware, performing MITM attacks, etc? The fact that the end user tools support 
this is a bug, but one from history. The fact that PyPI continues to support 
external links on simple/ is inexcusable given that we know that they are an 
attack vector. 

A simple proof of concept on a popular package hosted off site deployed during 
PyCon would be terrible, it was bad enough that last year people were trying to 
MITM due to lack of SSL. 

jesse
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