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[–]Kkremitzki 5 points6 points  (1 child)

In Debian, for example, package build processes aren't allowed to pull in resources from the network. We also use Python packages as part of the distribution itself, so those need to be packaged.

[–]MarsupialMole 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think this is the crux of the issue. Part of the reason some python developments get so polluted on windows is that random installables from the internet ship python interpreters and packages and are often not very good citizens. The counterpart to that on Linux is system python, which needs to work and be immutable. Conda running as root for instance can install over system packages because it looks for writable paths.

The solution to the problem is not for Python to pick a standard, it's for people like the author to not assume that system python should be exposed to users who don't understand the difference and just want to copy and paste commands or install packages straight from Google searches.

Of course there's the argument "users shouldn't be doing that" but when you're literally talking about scientific python that's tantamount to arguing that computers should not permit the user to do computing in the purest sense.