I'm not sure I should get involved in this, but ....

On Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 12:53 AM Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's
> suppose that there's a vulnerability discovered in the V8 JavaScript
> interpreter (the one behind Node.js and Google Chrome and such). Does
> everyone who's ever published a web app now have to push out a new
> version?


No, but anyone that has published an Electron app does. Oh, and Chrome
itself needs to be updated -- only on what, millions of machines? V8 is
bundled with Chrome -- you know, kind of like a PyInstaller app bundles
Python ;-)

Chris A: I ask you to let this go -- Python can be used for many different
kinds of application development. And those different use cases have
different needs. And Desktop GUI applications, in particular, really,
really, do need a "bundling" system -- at least on the Mac and Windows.

It's clear that that's not the realm you work in, which is fine, and as
more and more stuff moves to the Web, there is less need for Desktop apps,
but the need is still there, and PyInstaller, and Py2app and py2exe before
it (and still) are absolutely critical tools in that space.

I've been using Python for over twenty years, and discovering py2exe and
py2app way back then made it possible for me to deliver multiple products
that I simply could not have done without them. (and still do). Our users
have NO IDEA that they are built with Python, and that's perfect -- they
can just download, install, and have a working, native, desktop app. And it
will keep working, even when their sysadmin tells them they can't have
Python 2 installed anymore because it's no  longer maintained.

TL;DR:
- Python bundling systems are a very useful tool.
- They are NOT an "attractive nuisance"

All that being said, I don't think pyInstaller is a candidate for the
stdlib, for all the other reasons people have given in this thread.

- CHB

PS: IANAL, but it's probably not an option anyway. It's GPL, and can only
be re-licensed if ALL the copyright holders, potentially any that have
contributed code without relinquishing copyright, can agree, and that's a
pretty impossible task for a community project.

At the very least, yould need all of:

Copyright (c) 2010-2020, PyInstaller Development Team
Copyright (c) 2005-2009, Giovanni Bajo
Based on previous work under copyright (c) 2002 McMillan Enterprises, Inc.

to agree.


-- 
Christopher Barker, PhD

Python Language Consulting
  - Teaching
  - Scientific Software Development
  - Desktop GUI and Web Development
  - wxPython, numpy, scipy, Cython
_______________________________________________
Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org
To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org
https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/
Message archived at 
https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/5OC4FKHFKZ3NJF5KPGK6IJWS2P6JTYB7/
Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Reply via email to