From docs@:

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 2:56 AM, Peter Bröcker <peter.broecker@uni-koeln.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have tried to set up the distutils config files for a custom module
> installation. Using the suggested snippet  from
>
> http://docs.python.org/2/install/
>
> [install]
> install-base=$HOME/python
> install-purelib=lib
> install-platlib=lib.$PLAT
> install-scripts=scripts
> install-data=data did not work for me.
>
> Instead, I had to add install-headers and additionally modify all paths
> to include $base:
>
> [install]
> install-base=/some/dir
> install-purelib=$base/lib
> install-platlib=$base/lib.$PLAT
> install-scripts=$base/scripts
> install-headers=$base/include
> install-data=$base/data
>
>
> I'm unsure if this is actually a bug, but I could only resolve this with
> the help of this answer on stackoverflow:
> http://stackoverflow.com/a/12768721
>
> Best regards,
> Peter

Distutils is now deprecated (see PEP 632) and all tagged issues are being closed. From now until removal, only release blocking issues will be considered for distutils.

If this issue does not relate to distutils, please remove the component and reopen it. If you believe it still requires a fix, most likely the issue should be re-reported at https://github.com/pypa/setuptools