maintainer-feedback requested: [Bug 265176] lang/python3* distributes ensurepip, etc, which can break devel/py-pip and devel/py-setuptools

From: <bugzilla-noreply_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2022 17:00:49 UTC
Bugzilla Automation <bugzilla@FreeBSD.org> has asked freebsd-python (Nobody)
<python@FreeBSD.org> for maintainer-feedback:
Bug 265176: lang/python3* distributes ensurepip, etc, which can break
devel/py-pip and devel/py-setuptools
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=265176



--- Description ---
The python interpreter provides setuptools/pip along with the interpreter for
bootstrapping the pip and setuptools packages:
https://docs.python.org/3/library/ensurepip.html .

Using ensurepip from python is wrought with headaches though; using it can
break systems in the following scenarios:

1. lang/python310 distributes pip/setuptools version X, whereas devel/py-pip
requires pip/setuptools version Y. If version X > version Y and `python3.10
ensurepip --upgrade` is run by root, ensurepip will upgrade the system package
versions of pip/setuptools, resulting in files being installed to the system
site-packages which no longer match the devel/py-pip@py310 installed files.
2. The root user has a non-permissive umask (007). If `python3.10 -m ensurepip
--upgrade` is run as root, the packages installed will not be accessible to
unprivileged users (depending on group ownership), rendering packages which
rely on setuptools (and the libraries it provides) unusable to unprivileged
users.

ensurepip should be completely removed from lang/python3* and instead provided
as a separate standalone package, e.g., devel/py-ensurepip, OR (better yet)
just removed from lang/python3*, requiring the end-user to rely on devel/py-pip
and devel/py-setuptools packages explicitly. The latter option is how other
*nix distributions (CentOS Linux, Debian Linux) have dealt with this potential
pitfall.

More discussion about this can be found in PEP-453:
https://peps.python.org/pep-0453/ .