Preparing for a point release

[Fred Wright]

On Wed, 6 Dec 2017, Ian Bruene via devel wrote:

> For installs the only remaining problem is that for unknown reasons it
> sometimes doesn't follow the PREFIX when installing the python libs.

There's nothing "unknown" about it.  This has been discussed at length on
this ML, as well as being explained in the comments in
wafhelpers/fix_python_config.py.  The problem is that the location based
on PREFIX isn't necessarily in the default sys.path, and thus may not
actually work for imports.  The underlying problem is essentially that
there's no equivalent of ld.so.conf for Python (though Debian fixes the
important case by modifying the code in site.py).  Almost everyone agrees
that requiring the use of PYTHONPATH as a workaround is unacceptable, so
what's needed is a better workaround.  In the meantime, the philosophy is
to prioritize using a location that actually works over using a location
that honors PREFIX.

Adding "hacky fixes" without fully understanding the problem (or the code)
is just a recipe for trouble.

I'm swamped this week, so I don't have time to discuss it further right
now.

Fred Wright