> Ah, the discussion restarted on the other issue: http://bugs.python.org/issue20210#msg287516

Issue 20210 has ended up as a change in the build system eventually and not the installation process, only a tiny step towards the configuration of a smaller Python distribution :(

After browsing again the last discussion on "[Python-ideas] size of the installation of Python on mobile devices" [1], I find all the arguments in favor of such changes still relevant. I would also add the following new arguments:

* One frequent argument used against those changes is that "[packagers for mobile and embedded devices] will have to patch the code base anyway to get things working in such an environment". But this is not true, see issue 30386 (Add a build infrastructure for Android) that proposes an addition to Python that does not modify a SINGLE LINE in the existing source code. So it is not true (or at least not anymore true) that packagers for mobile and embedded devices need to patch the code base anyway.

* When Python is installed by the termux [2] Android application on an Android device, the size of the installed standard library is 34M. The termux installation script does not install the following files [3]:

    TERMUX_PKG_RM_AFTER_INSTALL="
    bin/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}m bin/idle*
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/idlelib
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/test
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/tkinter
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/turtledemo
    "

But it fails to not install also:
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/config-${_MAJOR_VERSION}m
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/ctypes/test
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/distutils/tests
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/sqlite3/test
    lib/python${_MAJOR_VERSION}/unittest/test

This is not consistent and should be fixed by a proper (endorsed by Python) installation process.

[1] https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2016-July/
[2] https://termux.com/
[3] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/blob/master/packages/python/build.sh