I have six changesets that make progressive improvements on cosmetic things, so that the code gets more readable. You can start with http://bitbucket.org/Merwok/distutils2-killsetup/changeset/5e2906cabeab and follow the parent links.

The other changes you made include changing the config file (+1, except with a simpler “mkpkg” section name), touching up the input/print code, and improving the helper methods (e.g. using codecs.open, using a simple string template instead of a lot of file.write). I had an illumination: We shouldn’t code input/print things but use the cmd module. That will be my next move, then I’ll look at your other code improvements (they will be a bit hard to spot, since your diff basically rewrites every line so I can’t easily see the changes made inside one function, but I’ll manage).