[Docutils-develop] roman.py, utils sub-package?

[Guenter M. <mi...@us...>]

Dear docutils developers,

I am trying to find a good solution to bugs [ 2971827 ] and [ 3442827 ]

  Problems with the "conditional setup" of roman.py.
  
  "setuptools" remembers all files installed from a package, therefore:
  
  If roman.py is installed from the Docutils package with "setuptools",
  deleting or updating with "setuptools" will also delete roman.py but
  other packages might and an updated Docutils does depend on it!

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2971827&group_id=38414&atid=422030
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3442827&group_id=38414&atid=422030

I'd like to move roman.py inside the "docutils" package hierarchy and
simplify our setup.py:

* The "conditional setup" has been a cause of many discussion and
  frustration, as it is "fragile" and "non-standard" (some even called it
  "stupid" and worse). 

* Since the minimal required Python version is up to 2.3, it is only used
  for one (out of originally 3) external dependencies: roman.py -- a
  single, stable module of just 82 lines.

The two modules importing roman.py (writers/manpage, parsers.rst.states)
can either ::

  try:
    import roman

first or always use the local copy.

The "roman" module could be made a dependency if the minimal supported
version is 2.5 as Distutils allows specifying a dependency since this
version (http://docs.python.org/release/2.5/whatsnew/pep-314.html) 

Opinions?

For the exact place, see my other post on a utils sub-package.

Günter