[Zope3-dev] Re: RFC: Known working sets

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

On 4 Sep 2007, at 20:07 , Tres Seaver wrote:
> Dieter Maurer wrote:
>> Wichert Akkerman wrote at 2007-9-4 09:12 +0200:
>>> ...
>>> Linux distros take an approach that does not fit in the python world
>>> though: their meta-set is a release with its own package  
>>> database. In
>>> other words every distribution/meta-set has its own PyPI instance  
>>> database.
>>
>> Not sure that I understand this correctly.
>>
>> If I do, then focus on a single distribution, e.g. "Debian edge".
>> This should be similar to the one "PyPI" database.
>>
>> Now, consider a ".deb" package, similar to one in the "Debian" distro
>> but not identical.
>>
>> I assume that is about Tres szenario...
>
> Perhaps we need to think of the "known good" set as a "PyPI subset",
> which is maintained in the same way that the various Debian distro  
> lists
> are:  they may end up pulling packages from the same "pool", but they
> don't expose versions / packages which have not been "opted in" to  
> the set.

That seems to suggest you would put the definition of the working set  
in the hands of the package index. In other words, give setuptools or  
zc.buildout a "stripped down" view of PyPI in which only the working  
set shows up.

The question is how to maintain this. You'd really want to maintain  
this within an egg. So PyPI would have to expose the dependency  
information (I don't know if it does that over the XMLRPC API) so  
that you could build the working set information from that.

The advantage of such an approach would be that it would work with  
existing tools.