dh_python2 and /usr/share/pyshared in quantal

[Barry Warsaw]

Just to be clear, I was mostly trying to reverse engineer the rationale for
the change, not defend it.  I agree with the decision to revert it.

On May 22, 2012, at 11:42 AM, Scott Kitterman wrote:

>On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 11:33:18 AM Barry Warsaw wrote:
>> For example, I took a look at authres which uses dh_python2.  debian/rules
>> creates a symlink in pyshared to its test suite, and then
>> d/python-authres.install references pyshared.  Even after reading the
>> changelog entry, it's not clear to me why this particular solution was
>> chosen. Fortunately the maintainer is here and can probably answer that
>> <wink>.
>
>In that case it's because I had to install an extra, non-code, file for the
>test suite that dh_python2 didn't recognize should go there.  Arguably that's
>something I should be able to accomplish by configuring dh_python2, but it's
>a rare enough situation installing directly to the correct location makes
>sense.
>
>I've got another case (pyspf) where I needed a symlink that would work
>regardless of if the default Python version was used.

Thanks for the explanation.

>/usr/share/pyshared is the correct location for such things.  That's what
>Python policy says.  pyshared is not an internal implementation detail of
>dh_python2.  It's where Python policy says to find such things.

Actually, I read python-policy as being a bit ambiguous here.  To me, it
clearly says pyshared is the location for source code common for multiple
Python (2) versions, but I think it's less than clear that this also applies
to non-code common files.

The other two hits for 'pyshared' in python-policy.txt are in the deprecated
python-support and python-central sections, so might be misconstrued as being
implementation details of those helpers respectively (there's no mention of it
in the dh_python2/3 section).

>I think it's an open question about we want to remove the general ability in
>the Debian Python system to support multiple Python versions.  It's a much
>broader question than just /usr/share/pyshared.  I don't think that there is
>any reason for Ubuntu to try and get ahead of Debian for this.

Agreed, and the debian-python list is probably a better place to discuss the
nuances of Python policy.

Cheers,
-Barry