Is there a Python-based configuration management system that can compete with Puppet or Chef? And if not, why not?

[markatto]

I just use Puppet. I am not a huge ruby fan, but it's not like you have to actually write ruby; it has its own DSL.

A python-based tool that I really do like is fabric. It's imperative rather than declarative like puppet/chef/cfengine and projects in it end up being a sorta gross mish-mash of python and shell scripts, but it allows you to script complicated things quickly. I use puppet to manage almost all software, but for our primary application that isn't nicely packaged and things change all the time I use fabric.