Python packaging targets

The Python packaging ecosystem just seems to be getting worse and worse, as a developer. There's more and more complexity, too much magic and perversely less freedom. For example, my Python-based GUI application is built with distutils, which is being deprecated. It seemed like setuptools was the obvious choice to replace distutils, but it's much more limited. For example, the method to ship files outside of the python module directory is now deprecated in setuptools. Therefore you can't ship man pages, examples etc, if needed, which is a big pain for an application for linux. There's the disaster area of pip which likes to download random things and change your install without telling you, while also making it hard to build from source. You also get the joy of endless messages about support for setup.py going away when you install stuff now. More and more half-baked stuff is added to the pile each year. It makes one even yearn for using autotools.