Thanks for the clarification, Nick. Yes, I agree that the basic "this is the tag that matches this precise CPython installation" is not the difficult part of the problem here, and if that is all that this issue is targeting, there should be no major problem.

My understanding was that Michael wanted to address the other part of the issue, that installers would somehow need to encapsulate the question of what binaries were compatible with what installations, and that, as you say, is a *much* murkier question.

If you're comfortable that the two aspects can be cleanly separated (and ideally that the second can be avoided altogether) then I'm much happier.