[Zope] Re: ANNOUNCE: Zope 2.6.3 Release and Security Update

[Chris McDonough]

On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 17:57, kosh wrote:
> I have NEVER run into that problem with debian. I have been using zope for 
> years with the default install of python on debian and it has worked without 
> problems. Also when you use the dists version you can install other packages 
> for it easier. I can do apt-get install python2.1-imaging and for many other 
> extension types.

I think Tres' point was really not that you can't use the system
installed Python or that there *are* problems with any given default
install of Python on any given distribution, it's just that a) nobody
knows; it's too hard to keep track of... Red Hat patches Python in some
fairly strange ways, for instance and b) when the sysadmin tasks are
performed by someone who is not the developer, there's a potential for
problems when the system Python gets upgraded.  It's cheap to build your
own Python, and makes a lot of sense in the context of trying to deploy
many systems for production use.  It's definitely possible to use the
system-installed Python for Zope and might even make sense in a lot of
cases but not for all.

FWIW, on Debian, I've found that it's a pain in the ass to *build*
Python because of weirdness with placement of libz.so (which Python
requires in order to build the zlib library, which Zope in turn relies
on to start), and I seem to also remember needing to play games with the
readline libraries in order to have readline-capable interactive Python
sessions.  All that said, I'd rather solve all of those problems and use
my own Python because I do codevelopment with people on different
platforms.  I'll usually build a set of "buildout" scripts that installs
Python along with Zope and all the products I need.  I do this because
the buildout needs to work on BSD, Linux, Cygwin, and Solaris.  It's a
nobrainer in this case to *not* use the system installed Python.

- C