diff -r 2a6c33592e40 Doc/distutils/apiref.rst
--- a/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst	Tue Mar 25 10:12:47 2014 +0100
+++ b/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst	Wed Mar 26 02:29:20 2014 +0000
@@ -880,9 +880,7 @@
 
    'Create an (optional compressed) archive as a tar file from all files in and
    under *base_dir*. *compress* must be ``'gzip'`` (the default),  ``'compress'``,
-   ``'bzip2'``, or ``None``.  Both :program:`tar` and the compression utility named
-   by *compress* must be on the  default program search path, so this is probably
-   Unix-specific.  The  output tar file will be named :file:`base_dir.tar`,
+   ``'bzip2'``, or ``None``. The  output tar file will be named :file:`base_dir.tar`,
    possibly plus the appropriate compression extension (:file:`.gz`, :file:`.bz2`
    or :file:`.Z`).  Return the output filename.
 
diff -r 2a6c33592e40 Doc/distutils/builtdist.rst
--- a/Doc/distutils/builtdist.rst	Tue Mar 25 10:12:47 2014 +0100
+++ b/Doc/distutils/builtdist.rst	Wed Mar 26 02:29:20 2014 +0000
@@ -104,8 +104,9 @@
    default on Windows
 
 (3)
-   requires external utilities: :program:`tar` and possibly one of :program:`gzip`,
-   :program:`bzip2`, or :program:`compress`
+   requires either external :program:`tar` utility and possibly one of :program:`gzip`,
+   :program:`bzip2`, or :program:`compress` or :mod:`tarfile` module (part of the 
+   standard Python library since Python 2.3)
 
 (4)
    requires either external :program:`zip` utility or :mod:`zipfile` module (part
diff -r 2a6c33592e40 Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py	Tue Mar 25 10:12:47 2014 +0100
+++ b/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py	Wed Mar 26 02:29:20 2014 +0000
@@ -131,10 +131,6 @@
         self.assertEqual(len(content), 4)
 
     @unittest.skipUnless(ZLIB_SUPPORT, 'Need zlib support to run')
-    @unittest.skipIf(find_executable('tar') is None,
-                     "The tar command is not found")
-    @unittest.skipIf(find_executable('gzip') is None,
-                     "The gzip command is not found")
     def test_make_distribution(self):
         # now building a sdist
         dist, cmd = self.get_cmd()
@@ -431,10 +427,6 @@
 
     @unittest.skipUnless(ZLIB_SUPPORT, "requires zlib")
     @unittest.skipUnless(UID_GID_SUPPORT, "Requires grp and pwd support")
-    @unittest.skipIf(find_executable('tar') is None,
-                     "The tar command is not found")
-    @unittest.skipIf(find_executable('gzip') is None,
-                     "The gzip command is not found")
     def test_make_distribution_owner_group(self):
         # now building a sdist
         dist, cmd = self.get_cmd()