[OE-core] splitting python's standard library

[Alexander Kanavin]

On 12/18/2017 11:02 PM, S. Lockwood-Childs wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 03:17:25PM -0500, Derek Straka wrote:
>> I have several customers who have optimized for space and would like to see
>> the capability maintained unless core removes the ability to split python
>> packages out.  They also remove the *.py files in favor of *.pyo files (via
>> a custom packaging mechanism).  I have automated tests that go through the
>> module importing on each of the meta-python packages to ensure it works on
>> minimal python installations.  When other contributors don't do provide
>> that functionality, I either catch it when I do package update or when it
>> breaks for one of my customers.  I'm fine if you don't want to perform the
>> checks yourself and it breaks my use case with missing dependencies, but I
>> would prefer that you don't remove the dependencies that are currently in
>> place.  Thanks.
> 
> Me too -- some of my projects still use NAND for rootfs, where space is tight and
> ability to split out python modules is very useful. Thus it is not an unused
> feature, though many projects have SD/eMMC for rootfs and those ones generally
> will not care about it.

This configuration can be supported by making a custom python3-modules 
package that whitelists precisely the needed files. But it shouldn't be 
imposed on everyone else - it's a significant burden to maintain the 
dependencies in every single python package, and keep the splitting 
working correctly in core python as well.

So I'd like to drop that - do keep in mind that very few people maintain 
oe-core (as opposed to sending occasional drive-by patches to fix 
specific issues raised in product development), and the headcount keeps 
getting smaller.

Alex