Python 2.6.3 is out, will a lot of bugs fixed. I had my share with Distutils and fixed quite a few, and 2.6.3 is looking very good so far !

Just a quick note for Setuptools users: you might bump into a problem if you provide a C extension. The setuptools code makes some assumptions on how and in which order the Distutils build_ext API are called. It also overrides some of these API to do some internal extra work. In other words, the way Setuptools patches Distutils makes it very sensitive to any internal Distutils code changes. In this particulare case you might have this bug:
File "...setuptools/command/build_ext.py", line 85, in get_ext_filename KeyError: 'xxx'

The fix is quite simple, it can be done by the end-user or in your package (which is better of course).
- In your package : use "Distribute >= 0.6.3" distribution instead of the usual "Setuptools == 0.6c9" distribution in you dependencies list. The code remain unchanged and you can still "import setuptools" and have it working fine. - As an end-user: just do a Distribute installation and your fine "(sudo) easy_install Distribute"

Hang in #distutils on Freenode, or drop a mail in distutils-SIG in case you have a problem.

Just to make things clear: The Distribute 0.6.x series is a mirror of Setuptools 0.6c9 code, with bug fixes.