2009/4/9 Tres Seaver <tsea...@palladion.com>: > Is there a technical reason why Windows users cannot build the > installers themselves from "pure Python" sdists? I would rather > distribute *no* binaries at all, myself, especially if "self-help" > works. Stuff which requires a compiler is obviously a barrier for many > Windows users: such packages normally need a Windows-savvy contributor > to do the installer build, which often lags the 'sdist' release by a > noticeable period.
No technical reason, no. It's as simple as "python setup.py bdist_wininst" or "python setup.py mdist_msi". Personally, I'm happy doing that for any pure python package that doesn't provide an installer. The only downside is that not all packages document whether they are pure Python. It can be frustrating to download a package, unpack it, and try to build it only to find out that it has C code that won't build. Or even more subtle, it builds fine, but ignores important speedup code written in C... But the main reason is social - Windows users expect to download installers, and have a low tolerance for projects that don't provide such. And a low tolerance for anything involving a command line, in many cases. Call us bone idle if you must, but it's a fact you need to deal with in considering a Windows audience. However, it's equally true (I believe) that "python setup.py bdist_wininst" works fine on a Linux box. So it's not as if building Windows installers is a huge chore for developers, either. (I accept that there are other tasks, like distribution). It's a trade-off of developer time vs user time (and I fully accept that this trade-off comes out differently in an open source/volunteer environment). Paul. _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
