2009/3/24 Toshio Kuratomi <a.bad...@gmail.com>: > Steve Holden wrote: > >> Seems to me that while all this is fine for developers and Python users >> it's completely unsatisfactory for people who just want to use Python >> applications. For them it's much easier if each application comes with >> all dependencies including the interpreter. >> >> This may seem wasteful, but it removes many of the version compatibility >> issues that otherwise bog things down. >> > The upfront cost of bundling is lower but the maintenance cost is > higher. For instance, OS vendors have developed many ways of being > notified of and dealing with security issues. If there's a security > issue with gtkmozdev and the python bindings to it have to be > recompiled, OS vendors will be alerted to it and have the opportunity to > release updates on zero day, the day that the security announcement goes > out.
I don't think bundling should be compared to depending on the system libraries, but as a lesser evil compared to requiring multiple, system-wide installed libraries. > > 3) Over time, bundled libraries tend to become forked versions. And > worse, privately forked versions. If three python apps all use slightly > different older versions of libfoo-python and have backported fixes, > added new features, etc it is a nightmare for a system administrator or > packager to get them running with a single version from the system > library or forward port them. And because they're private forks the > developers lose out on collaborating on security, bugfixes, etc because > they are doing their work in isolation from the other forks. This is a purely technical problem, and can be handled by good source control systems, no ? cheers, David _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
