Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net> writes:

>> In my experience, it seems like the PyPi tarballs are what the upstream
>> projects want distributors to use.
>>
>> So, I usually use what's on PyPi, but it depends.
>
> By preferring pypi, I worry that we promote a kind of centralization. In
> my romanticized vision for the future, I see every one self-hosting
> their own servers, serving code for their projects, and guix pulling and
> building from all of them. This is why I find excessive dependence on
> pypi disturbing. We are also creating a single point of failure/attack
> at pypi. Granted that everyone using github to host their projects is
> not much better, still...

I don't find Github better at all. One is a centralized source code
hosting platform, the other is a centralized Python package publishing
platform.

In the rare case where the package is hosted elsewhere (e.g. on a
personal/project home page) then we should use that*, but I have no
real preference between github/bitbucket/etc and PyPi other than
PyPi packages often being more "polished".

* Usually**, such pages just link to PyPi.
** See "python-cram" for a counter-example.