1.1 Concepts & Terminology

Using the Distutils is quite simple, both for module developers and for users/administrators installing third-party modules. As a developer, your responsibilities (apart from writing solid, well-documented and well-tested code, of course!) are:

write a setup script (setup.py by convention)
(optional) write a setup configuration file
create a source distribution
(optional) create one or more built (binary) distributions

Each of these tasks is covered in this document.

Not all module developers have access to a multitude of platforms, so it's not always feasible to expect them to create a multitude of built distributions. It is hoped that a class of intermediaries, called packagers, will arise to address this need. Packagers will take source distributions released by module developers, build them on one or more platforms, and release the resulting built distributions. Thus, users on the most popular platforms will be able to install most popular Python module distributions in the most natural way for their platform, without having to run a single setup script or compile a line of code.

See About this document... for information on suggesting changes.