The software developed through the PyPA is used to package, share, and install Python software and to interact with indexes of downloadable Python software such as PyPI, the Python Package Index. Click the logo below to download pip, the most prominent software used to interact with PyPI.

PyPA’s current goals are:

• To provide a relatively easy to use software distribution infrastructure that is also fast, reliable and reasonably secure. “Reasonably secure”, due to backwards compatibility constraints preventing turning off some insecure legacy features.
• To work towards a system that:
  • Clearly delineates the phases of distribution
  • Allows for multiple interacting tools vs one monolithic tool
  • Specifically allows for alternative build systems
• To improve the docs for users, including the Python Packaging User Guide, anything related to packaging on docs.python.org, and the project docs for pip, setuptools, virtualenv, and wheel.
• To be progressive, but also be very mindful to not break things that are currently working, due to haste.
• To specifically not focus at first on adding something to the standard library as our solution to our packaging problems. Adding something to the standard library is hard, and once it’s added, it’s a slow process to change it. Most of the current effort is largely focused on 3rd party projects.