[Python-Dev] [Distutils] PEP 365 (Adding the pkg_resources module)

Thu Mar 20 17:46:36 CET 2008

On Mar 20, 2008, at 11:31 AM, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>> I'll note that I use easy_install *only* to work in *non-system*
>> locations: if I want to install Python packages to /usr/lib/ 
>> python2.x/,
>> I use the standard system installer, e.g. 'apt-get install
>> python-frobnatz'.
>> This is probably not the Windows way of doing things (at least not how
> I use Windows). Windows doesn't really have the notion of "system
> location" (or multiple levels of them, where \Windows and
> \Windows\system32 is "more system" than \Program Files, say).
>> Windows users typically view the entire system as "theirs", and
> have no concerns at all about putting things into Program Files,
> system32, or, for that matter, \python25. In fact, they don't care
> or even know where stuff ends up - they expect that the system will
> find it, and they expect that they can remove anything they installed
> even without known where it is - because there is a standard place
> to look for uninstalling things.

While these observations are accurate for most home users, it is worth 
noting that many IT departments deploy locked-down versions of windows 
that either have fine-grained group policies to forbid modifications 
to the system disk (and require the user to write things to a mounted 
network home directory), or that give write access to the system disk 
but then re-image it upon reboot.
IT departments that deploy this sort of setup usually have the 
"hostile user" mentality, and that is strongly correlated, in turn, 
with users that are reluctant to engage IT to allow them install an 
app. We have run into this a few times, and it would be good to keep 
this scenario in mind.
-Peter