I am upgrading Ubuntu 13.04's python-virtualenv package to 1.8.2. This could provide a basis for upgrading the Debian version in Wheezy+1.
I'd like to modify the add_distribute.patch. What this currently does is set virtualenv to use distribute by default. This is fine, and I want to keep this change. In fact, this only affects Python 2 venvs since distribute is the only choice for Python 3 anyway. What I'm very tempted to drop is the addition of the --setuptools option for Python 2 (and the $VIRTUALENV_{USE_,}SETUPTOOLS envar). As mentioned, this would be ignored for Python 3, but also really, who uses setuptools anymore? :) I don't think this would affect any Debian/Ubuntu packages, since we've long used distribute as an alias for setuptools, so all of our packages already use distribute. I suppose it could break 3rd party developers, but if they're developing on Debian, using the packaged version of virtualenv, *and* still want to use setuptools, they're going to have to do something special anyway (set an envar, pass in a cli switch). Is it really that much of a hardship to just require them to install or use upstream virtualenv from source in those cases? Can't we put a stake in the heart of setuptools already? So my proposal is to adjust the patch so that it uses distribute only for both Python 2 and 3 on Debian. Comments? -Barry
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