[reportlab-users] More 2.2 questions - package rearrangement

[Matthias Klose]

some maybe unrelated comments:

The most important thing for people packaging reportlab for a (Linux)
distribution is the possibility to actually be able to distribute it. This was
already mentioned for the 1.x releases and again for the 2.0 release, even
patches were sent to the ML, but silently ignored. I think even a statement that
the reportlab project does not want to address these issues would be more honest
than this non-comment. The stuff which hinders unmodifed distribution are:

 - inclusion of non-free fonts, which is not necessary, and these can be
   replaced by free fonts as well (or maybe add configuration options to
   use fonts which are available on the system).

 - the use of a copyrighted example text (the translation of the Homer text
   is copyrighted, and you are not allowed to change it, one criterium to
   be able to distribute it as part of free software). It should be easy to
   find a non-problematic text.

The other proposed changes, including the inclusion of the addons extension into
the main source is welcome. It would be nice if reportlab can be installed using
pure distutils, and doesn't rely on setuptools.

Thanks, Matthias (packaging for Ubuntu and Debian)

Andy Robinson schrieb:

> I would like peoples' opinions on a package rearrangement.  This

> should make it a bit easier to build standard distutils outputs and be

> more in line with what other, younger Python packages do.

> 

> When we first started in 2000, the top-level directory in our CVS rep

> WAS the 'reportlab' package, and we added all our docs, tests and

> demos underneath it.  This also made distutils harder to use, as the

> setup.py was under 'reportlab' rather than above it, which used to

> confuse distutils.  Now we're in SVN, it's easy to rearrange things a

> little.   The suggestion is that the >=2.2 source, when checked out or

> downloaded as a .tar.gz, might contain the more conventional layout

> like this....

> 

> 

> - README, CHANGES etc

> - setup.py

> - reportlab/    - the pure python package

> - reportlab/fonts/ - has more fonts added

> 

> - rl_addons/   - contains all C source code

>      rl_accel/

>      renderPM/

> 

> - docs/  - code for userguide etc, moved up out of the Python package

> - tests/ - ditto

> - demos/ - ditto

> 

> Setup.py can be written in such a way that it would build and install

> the extensions if it could; but if not, it would print a message then

> continue, just installing the pure python code.  So a "mininal"

> Python-only distro is achieved by leaving out the rl_addons directory.

> 

> ---

> 

> Does this change look worthwhile?  Would it help anyone or hinder

> anyone, or are people indifferent?

> 

> 

> Best Regards,

>