On 07/22/2016 12:39 PM, Donald Stufft wrote:
On Jul 22, 2016, at 11:47 AM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal 
<chris.bar...@noaa.gov> wrote:


If the core devs think it's fine and dandy like it is, we can all stop
talking about it.
I think they’re certainly a problem. The current solutions that have been
proposed have their own problems of course, and problems enough that I
don’t feel comfortable implementing them. Personally I don’t currently have
the time to work on a better solution but if someone did that’d be fine
with me.

I would mention though that it’s possible there *is* no solution to this
problem that doesn’t bring with it it’s own problems that are worse then
the problem at hand. I’m not saying that’s the case, but just mentioning
that it may be so.
Is there a place where the currently proposed solutions are briefly outlined?

One solution that seems apparent to me is to move to an org/package hierarchy like what GitHub has. By default, packages get published under a default namespace:

default/flask
legacy/flask
(you get the point, probably need a better name)

unless the user has registered on pypi for an organization and publishes the package under that org:

pallets/flask

You would still have contention at the org level, but my guess is this contention would be much less significant than the current contention that is faced with only having a single-level namespace for package names. You could further improve this by having org creation requests either A) approved to prevent name squatting or B) have an appeal process for org name squatting that is blatant (e.g. I register the "google" or "pypa" org) and/or C) expire orgs that are no longer maintained.

The details of both A & B & C would be tricky to get right, but the rules would at least be decided on from the beginning, so people know what the conditions are. If they don't like those conditions, then they don't get an org, and the situation they are in with name contention is exactly the same as it is now. All legacy packages operate under the current ruleset. All orgs and their packages operate under the new ruleset. Hopefully avoiding complaints of "you changed the game on us." You could also operate the org registration idea under "beta" conditions for first couple years to work out kinks in the process and warn people up-front that the rules could change during that time.

By mapping all current packages under some "legacy" namespace, there should be room for backwards compatibility. So, if my projects require "flask" either pip or Warehouse knows to return "legacy/flask."

Has this been proposed before?  Any interest?

*Randy Syring*
Husband | Father | Redeemed Sinner

/"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36 ESV)/

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