Merge remote-tracking branch 'ffy00/rfc0010'

rfcs/0010-adopt-pep517-tooling.rst

+=========================================
+Adopt PEP 517 tooling for Python packages
+=========================================
+
+- Date proposed: 2022-02-19
+- RFC MR: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/rfcs/-/merge_requests/0010
+
+Summary
+-------
+
+Replace setup.py with PEP 517 tooling (python-build/python-installer) for all
+Python packages where this approach is viable.
+
+Motivation
+----------
+
+There are two main points.
+
+1) Direct ``setup.py`` calls are deprecated
+
+The setuptools upstream has deprecated direct ``setup.py`` calls, and plans to
+remove support for them in the future. Please see `setuptools #2088`_ and
+`setuptools #2080`_ for more context.
+
+2) ``setup.py install`` calls install old-style Python metadata
+
+The metadata installed by ``setup.py install`` is the old-style "egg" format
+(.egg-info). Is is essentially implementation-defined by setuptools and has been
+replaced by a standardized format (.dist-info).
+By moving to the PEP 517 tooling, we will be using the wheel format, which has
+the standardized metadata.
+
+Specification
+-------------
+
+The change consists of replacing ``setup.py`` invocations with the
+``python-build`` and ``python-installer`` tools.
+
+Essentially replacing
+
+::
+
+  python setup.py build
+  python setup.py install --root="$pkgdir" --optimize=1
+
+with
+
+::
+
+  python -m build --wheel --no-isolation
+  python -m installer --destdir="$pkgdir" dist/*.whl
+
+You can find more information in the `Python packaging guidelines`_.
+
+This would naturally only serve as a general guideline, packages that need an
+alternative approach can still do so, but are recommended to stay as close as the
+guidelines as reasonably possible.
+
+Drawbacks
+---------
+
+This change affects a big number of packages, so it will require some work per
+part of the maintainers, but it can be done incrementally as packages are
+updated.
+
+Unresolved Questions
+--------------------
+
+None, I think.
+
+Alternatives Considered
+-----------------------
+
+I don't think there is currently any viable alternative solution for the issues
+presented.
+
+
+.. _setuptools #2088: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2088
+.. _setuptools #2080: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/2080
+.. _Python packaging guidelines: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Python_package_guidelines#Standards_based_(PEP_517)