= Packaging =

We want to package Tahoe for people to download and use and we want to use 3rd-party libraries.  The following are our current desiderata:

 * We can produce a Tahoe binary package for a given deployment target, ship that package to a user using that platform, they can install that package, and it will work. That is: user doesn't have to manually satisfy any dependencies.  The only deployment target that we currently support is Ubuntu Feisty or newer.

For libraries that Tahoe uses, we have these desiderata:

 * We use the source code as it is written by upstream. That is: no patching required.

 * Use it as it is packaged by upstream. That is: we prefer to get a copy of the source code of the package as upstream prefers to distribute such source code, rather than by pulling from their revision control tool or so on.

 * The user doesn't have to manually resolve any conflicts (this means that we either have to automatically use a 3rd-party library if it is already installed or else we have to automatically force Tahoe to use the copy that it came bundled with).

 * Make it convenient for someone to use other versions of the packages that we use e.g. system-wide packages or newer or alternate versions, etc..

 * Bundle required libraries with the Tahoe distribution so that if someone downloads the distribution, moves to a desert island without a net connection, and then installs, it works.


== setuptools ==

One option is to use a Python packaging tool named [http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/setuptools setuptools].

Advantages (note that each of these are options provided by setuptools, not requirements imposed by the use of setuptools):

 * management of dependencies (even on platforms that don't have a native package manager);  This is the important feature.

 * integration with http://cheeseshop.python.org/ -- with setuptools we can update the [http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/allmydata-tahoe allmydata-tahoe metadata at the cheeseshop] automatically, and also upload packages to be distributed from cheeseshop

 * for hackers who want to use Tahoe, and who like setuptools, this makes using Tahoe convenient and pleasant for them

 * replace "build/configure/package/distribute/test/develop" code written in the Make language with code written in Python;  One specific instance of this is {{{./setup.py test}}} which runs the unit tests

Disadvantages:

 * We haven't figured out exactly how to take advantage of setuptools's dependency management while also integrating smoothly with platform-specific package managers such as Debian apt.  I (Zooko) think that this is possible, but it isn't yet standard practice among setuptools users.  One important detail is the special option to setuptools called {{{--single-version-externally-managed}}}.

We already have [http://allmydata.org/darcs.cgi/tahoe-setuptools/?c=annotate&p=20070522155758-eb44e-15f8219675d4b35b2488bc742f46714526d61cb3.gz a patch] which changes Tahoe to use setuptools, but it doesn't solve the "How to integrate smoothly with platform-specific package managers." part yet.