On Wed, Feb 24, 2021, at 09:08, Paul Moore wrote:
> I don't use Linux much, and I'm definitely not familiar with Linux
> distribution tools, but from what I can gather Linux distributions
> have made the choices:
> 
> 1. Write key operating system utilities in Python.
> 2. Share the Python interpreter and libraries.
> 3. Expose that Python interpreter as the *user's* default Python.

I think 1 *partially* mischaracterizes the problem, because any "system python" 
would logically be used by *every application written in python [or that embeds 
python] distributed by the OS's package management*, not just by "key operating 
system utilities". To suggest otherwise implies that they should not distribute 
any python applications at all.

That also makes asking all of their package maintainers to change their #! line 
to point at a different interpreter [or to pass an option, as I had suggested 
in another post] a more significant ask than the "just change a few core 
utilities" that some people seem to be assuming it would be. It also means that 
making a "system python" does not remove the need to distribute the largish 
subset of python *libraries* that they distribute, because even when these 
libraries aren't used by key OS utilities, they are still used by packaged 
applications.

[this, in turn, means we don't want the user's default python environment to 
stand entirely separate from the system python, or we'll start getting 
complaints along the lines of "I apt-get installed numpy, why can't I import it 
in my python interpreter?" - particularly from users who don't really care if 
it runs a couple versions behind]
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