Attached is a patch, originally written by Van Lindberg*, which changes Python's layout on Windows to more match all of the other operating systems we support. This patch starts by changing the layout of virtual environments, so the venv module creates an environment with the same layout you'd find on Linux. The most visible change is the Scripts folder becoming bin, and there are changes to capitalization of folders to match that of Linux as well.

If this is acceptable I can do the Windows installer change to have the installed layout follow what's in this patch.


* Van asked me to take this on for him. I will make sure he has a contributor agreement on file.

This was proposed a little while ago, and I have the impression that (after a lot of discussion) the proposal didn't achieve consensus on python-dev. Has that changed?

The patch itself doesn't touch the venv package, which would still create e.g. 'Scripts' and 'Include' directories.

I think there were strong objections to changing the path of python.exe, but this is not proposed in this patch.

As for the patch itself, I think it lacks bdist_msi changes.

Ah, sorry, the venv change wasn't included for some reason. New patch attached. I'll look into bdist_msi.

I don't remember there being strong thoughts against this, but I guess I'll go look again.

Should we try to implement this in 3.5, hold it until 3.6, reject it completely or what?

Right now I'm inclined to reject it completely, if only for backwards compatibility (there was certainly strong opposition on python-dev recently).

That said, there's some ongoing discussion about what a python.org installation is meant to look like, which may lead to an opportunity to change this as part of wider changes. If something comes of that, the install location may be able to (or need to) change, but until then this seems like a change for change's sake and is not compelling.

If that means we should close this now and reopen later, happy to do that. But without a plan to implement it, we should definitely close this rather than reassign it to 3.6.

Per Steve, closing as rejected. (Rejecting this patch, any change would be part of a larger patch dealing also with other issues).