The uv project is working on a new PEP517 backend that may negatively impact Python packaging for distros

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Hello, everyone.

I've learned that the uv project is currently working on starting to
provide their own PEP 517 build backend [1].  I am significantly worried
that it will negatively impact our ability to package Python software in
Gentoo, and I think other distributions that do not use wheels will also
be impacted.

Just to make things clear, I'm not opposed to uv itself at all.  I think
it's a great packaging tool, and I use it when I can.  However, this has
a flip side that once it starts providing its own build backend, it will
become immensely popular and people will be using it for pure Python
projects.  This will mean that -- unless we resort to some kind of
downstream patching or workarounds -- building wheels for these packages
will also require installing uv, and therefore the portability of pure
Python packages using the backend will be severely limited.

The way I see it, if the backend starts being officially recommended,
things are going to become much more painful for us.  If anything,
Gentoo will probably have to resort to downstream patching the packages
to use a pure Python backend instead to retain compatibility with all
the targets we support.

[1] https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/issues/3957

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Best regards,
Micha=C5=82 G=C3=B3rny


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