I have a case which triggers the assert in readline:

  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/command/develop.py",
line 27, in run
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/command/develop.py",
line 102, in install_for_development
  File
"build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line
519, in process_distribution
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/pkg_resources.py", line 522, in resolve
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/pkg_resources.py", line 758, in
best_match
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/pkg_resources.py", line 770, in obtain
  File
"build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line
433, in easy_install
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/package_index.py", line
462, in fetch_distribution
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/package_index.py", line
303, in find_packages
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/package_index.py", line
617, in scan_url
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/setuptools/package_index.py", line
198, in process_url
  File "/home/ralf/py26/lib/python2.6/socket.py", line 326, in read
data = self._sock.recv(rbufsize)
  File "/home/ralf/py26/lib/python2.6/httplib.py", line 512, in read
return self._read_chunked(amt)
  File "/home/ralf/py26/lib/python2.6/httplib.py", line 548, in
_read_chunked
line = self.fp.readline()
  File "/home/ralf/py26/lib/python2.6/socket.py", line 391, in readline
assert buf.tell() == 0
AssertionError

this happens when I run :

easy_install 'mwlib<0.6'