Packaging without setup.py

Question

Did anybody try to create tools that create Python source distributions ( sdist ) without setup.py ? Does Python allow that? Is that at all possible? Or setup.py is an obligatory part of any isntallable Python archive hosted on PyPI? If yes, then where is a PEP for that format?

Answer 1

A Python package is just a bunch of Python files in a folder, possibly with an __init__.py file as well. It might also have subpackages, which are just packages within packages.

Generally, setup.py is not included in any such package.