Deprecate bdist_wininst: use bdist_wheel instead

[vstinner]

BPO	37481
Nosy	@pfmoore, @vstinner, @tjguk, @merwok, @zware, @zooba, @dstufft, @pganssle, @miss-islington
PRs	bpo-37481: Deprecate distutils bdist_wininst command #14553 [3.8] bpo-37481: Deprecate distutils bdist_wininst command (GH-14553) #14598

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2019-07-05.10:26:46.331>
created_at = <Date 2019-07-02.11:05:55.069>
labels = ['3.8', 'library', '3.9', 'OS-windows']
title = 'Deprecate bdist_wininst: use bdist_wheel instead'
updated_at = <Date 2019-07-05.10:26:46.324>
user = 'https://github.com/vstinner'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-07-05.10:26:46.324>
actor = 'vstinner'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-07-05.10:26:46.331>
closer = 'vstinner'
components = ['Distutils', 'Windows']
creation = <Date 2019-07-02.11:05:55.069>
creator = 'vstinner'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 37481
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 6.0
messages = ['347131', '347153', '347288', '347312', '347317', '347331']
nosy_count = 9.0
nosy_names = ['paul.moore', 'vstinner', 'tim.golden', 'eric.araujo', 'zach.ware', 'steve.dower', 'dstufft', 'p-ganssle', 'miss-islington']
pr_nums = ['14553', '14598']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue37481'
versions = ['Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9']

[vstinner]

According to the following "Deprecate bdist_wininst" discussion, bdist_wininst can be deprecated:
https://discuss.python.org/t/deprecate-bdist-wininst/1929

bdist_wininst uses the mbcs encoding which is only available on Windows. There is bpo-10945 open for 8 years to suggest to use UTF-8 or use the Unicode (wide character) flavor of the Windows API to support running bdist_wininst on non-Windows platforms and to be able to distribute binaries which don’t depend on the ANSI code page.

I propose to deprecate it in Python 3.9, because of bpo-10945 issue. I don't propose to plan bdist_wininst removal yet.

As an user, it’s annoying to have to run a GUI to install something, whereas pip can install dependencies using wheel packages in a command line interface, transparently, without bugging the user with dialog boxes.

When I look at numpy or Cython: they don’t distribute .exe installers, but binary wheel packages for Windows. I understood the wheel packages is the recommended way to distribute binaries on Windows, and so that bdist_wininst is kind of deprecated.

Donald Stufft wrote:

"For what it’s worth, PyPI doesn’t even allow you to upload bdist_wininst (See PEP-527 2) anymore, so if you’re looking at PyPI to determine usage, you’re going to get no usage whatsoever for anything recent.

I don’t have any idea if other people are still using bdist_wininst and distributing them through some other mechanism."

Paul Ganssle wrote:

"From my perspective, nearly all direct invocations of setup.py are currently or are eventually heading for deprecation. PEP-517 doesn’t provide hooks to generate anything other than sdist or wheel, so basically all commands not actually triggered (directly or indirectly) by calling a PEP-517 front-end are suspect."

Attached PR deprecates bdist_wininst.

See also the related issue bpo-37468 "Don't install wininst*.exe on non-Windows platforms". bdist_wininst only works on Windows: see bpo-10945 and commit 72cd653.

[zooba]

For the record, I am 100% in favor of deprecating and removing bdist_wininst and bdist_msi from distutils as soon as possible, as they are maintenance burdens and bdist_wininst in particular often attracts AV false positives.

setuptools is welcome to either do the same or restore the functionality, I don't have any preference if someone else is maintaining it (but I'd suggest removal there too until someone wants to maintain it).

Some of our distributions of Python already exclude bdist_wininst, so it can't be blindly relied on. And I don't know that it was ever upgraded for PEP-514. So far I have heard zero complaints about this, though as Paul Ganssle pointed out on the PR they're not likely to be using the "newer" packages.

So consider me +1 for deprecate in 3.8 (we can still do that, right? it's just docs and a warning on use) and remove in 3.9 or 3.10 as appropriate.

[vstinner]

So consider me +1 for deprecate in 3.8 (we can still do that, right? it's just docs and a warning on use) and remove in 3.9 or 3.10 as appropriate.

I modified my PR to deprecate the feature in Python 3.8. I'm not sure about scheduling the removal yet, since the Python 3.9 release schedule is under discussion:
https://discuss.python.org/t/pep-596-python-3-9-release-schedule-doubling-the-release-cadence/1828

I would prefer to give at least 2 years to projects to update their setup.py (how they are distributed). Even if bdist_wininst has issues, it's not too painful to maintain a few more years. The removal can be decided later.

[vstinner]

New changeset 1da4462 by Victor Stinner in branch 'master':
bpo-37481: Deprecate distutils bdist_wininst command (GH-14553)
1da4462

[miss-islington]

New changeset b4cd6ba by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.8':
bpo-37481: Deprecate distutils bdist_wininst command (GH-14553)
b4cd6ba

[vstinner]

The initial issue has been fixed. Let's continue the discussion in the Packaging forum:
https://discuss.python.org/t/deprecate-bdist-wininst/1929