For a long time, the dev-python category in Gentoo did not follow any specific naming policy. Usually we went for what made the ebuild easier — the GitHub project name, if we happened to be using GitHub archives as distfiles, or PyPI project name when using source distributions from PyPI. However, this was inconvenient for users who had a hard time finding specific packages. Historically, we even had cases of developers independently adding a second copy of the same package with different name.
This is why I eventually started researching the standards for Python package naming, and drafting a new policy. The package name policy can now be found in the Gentoo Python Guide. In this post, I’d like to summarize the research that led to forming it, and the problems that we are to face yet.
Continue reading “The inconsistencies around Python package naming and the new policy”