Packaging History

Page Status:Complete Last Reviewed:2014-04-09

2014

• PEP453: Being able to bootstrap pip into Python 3.4.
• http://bugs.python.org/issue19407: Modern Installation and Packaging guides on python.org.
• virtualenv (v1.11) started installing pip & setuptools using wheels.
• pip (v1.5.1) became available as a cross platform wheel on PyPI.
• pip (v1.5.1) stop requiring setuptools to install wheels.
• get-pip.py doesn’t require setuptools to be installed first
• get-pip.py installs setuptools for you, if you don’t already have it
• PEP449: Removal of the DNS based mirror autodiscovery
• Refactored the pip docs to be consistent with the “PyPA Standard Docs Template”

2013

• distlib started releasing to PyPI, and pip began depending on it
• Core PyPI infrastructure relocated to OSU/OSL (with significantly increased resources)
• The core packaging projects were collected under the Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) accounts on GitHub and Bitbucket [2]
• Distribute merged back into setuptools, and setuptools development migrated to the PyPA BitBucket account. [1] [5]
• PyPI supports clients using verified SSL with standard cert bundles
• PyPI forces web users over to SSL
• pip (v1.3) and easy_install (v0.7) use verified SSL by default
• easy_install supports additional hashes beyond md5 (pip already did)
• Fastly CDN enabled for PyPI (donated)
• Restructured the pip install docs to clarify that setuptools and pip are the “base” of the bootstrapping hierarchy
• setuptools available as a cross platform wheel on PyPI
• PEP438 Transitioning to release-file hosting on PyPI and the associated pip changes.
• pip (v1.4) added support for building and installing wheels
• PyPA became the maintainer for the Python Packaging User Guide, which was forked from the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Packaging”.
• Packaging Dev and User Summits were held at Pycon 2013 to share ideas on the future of packaging. [3] [4]
• PEP425 and PEP427 were accepted. Together, they specify a built-package format for Python called Wheel.

Before 2013

2012-06-19: The effort to include “Distutils2/Packaging” in Python 3.3 was abandoned due lack of involvement. [6]

2011-02-28: The PyPA is created to take over the maintenance of pip and virtualenv from Ian Bicking, led by Carl Meyer, Brian Rosner and Jannis Leidel. Other proposed names were “ianb-ng”, “cabal”, “pack” and “Ministry of Installation”.

2008: distribute was forked from setuptools by Tarek Ziade, in an effort to create a more open project.

2008: pip was introduced by Ian Bicking as an alternative to easy_install (the installer included with setuptools)

2007: virtualenv was introduced by Ian Bicking, which allowed users to create isolated Python environments based on a central system installation of Python.

2006: buildout was introduced by Jim Fulton, with the goal to create a system for repeatable installations of potentially complex projects.

2004: setuptools was introduced by Phillip Eby, which included the Egg format, and the ability to declare and automatically install dependencies.

2003: PyPI was up and running.

2002: Richard Jones started work on PyPI, and created PEP301 to describe it.

2001: PEP241 was written to standardize the metadata for distributions.

2000: catalog-sig was created to discuss creating a centralized index of distributions.

2000: distutils was added to the Python standard library in Python 1.6.

1998: The distutils-sig dicussion list was created to discuss the development of distutils.

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[1]	http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2013-June/021160.html

[2]	http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2013-March/020224.html

[3]	https://us.pycon.org/2013/community/openspaces/packaginganddistributionminisummit/

[4]	http://www.pyvideo.org/video/1731/panel-directions-for-packaging

[5]	http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2013-March/020127.html

[6]	http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-June/120430.html