[Distutils] Setuptools-Distribute merge announcement

Jason Coombs (head of the Distribute project) and I are working on merging the bulk of the improvements distribute made into the setuptools code base. He has volunteered to take over maintenance of setuptools, and I welcome his assistance. I appreciate the contributions made by the distribute maintainers over the years, and am glad to have Jason's help in getting those contributions into setuptools as well. Continuing to keep the code bases separate isn't helping anybody, and as setuptools moves once again into active development to deal with the upcoming shifts in the Python-wide packaging infrastructure (the new PEPs, formats, SSL, TUF, etc.), it makes sense to combine efforts. Aside from the problems experienced by people with one package that are fixed in the other, the biggest difficulties with the fork right now are faced by the maintainers of setuptools-driven projects like pip, virtualenv, and buildout, who have to either take sides in a conflict, or spend additional time and effort testing and integrating with both setuptools and distribute. We'd like to end that pain and simplify matters for end users by bringing distribute enhancements to setuptools and phasing out the distribute fork as soon as is practical. In the short term, our goal is to consolidate the projects to prevent duplication, wasted effort, and incompatibility, so that we can start moving forward. This merge will allow us to combine resources and teams, so that we may focus on a stable but actively-maintained toolset. In the longer term, the goal is for setuptools as a concept to become obsolete. For the first time, the Python packaging world has gotten to a point where there are PEPs *and implementations* for key parts of the packaging infrastructure that offer the potential to get rid of setuptools entirely. (Vinay Sajip's work on distlib, Daniel Holth's work on the "wheel" format, and Nick Coghlan's taking up the reins of the packaging PEPs and providing a clear vision for a new way of doing things -- these are just a few of the developments in recent play.) "Obsolete", however, doesn't mean unmaintained or undeveloped. In fact, for the "new way of doing things" to succeed, setuptools will need a lot of new features -- some small, some large -- to provide a migration path. At the moment, the merge is not yet complete. We are working on a common repository where the two projects' history has been spliced together, and are cleaning up the branch heads to facilitate re-merging them. We'd hoped to have this done by PyCon, but there have been a host of personal, health, and community issues consuming much of our available work time. But we decided to go ahead and make an announcement *now*, because with the big shifts taking place in the packaging world, there are people who need to know about the upcoming merge in order to make the best decisions about their own projects (e.g. pip, buildout, etc.) and to better support their own users. Thank you once again to all the distribute contributors, for the many fine improvements you've made to the setuptools package over the years, and I hope that you'll continue to make them in the future. (Especially as I begin to phase myself out of an active role in the project!) I now want to turn the floor over to Jason, who's put together a Roadmap/FAQ for what's going to be happening with the project going forward. We'll then both be here in the thread to address any questions or concerns you might have.