Where did the term

provides

come from in

python_distribution(provides=...)

? Do any other targets do something similar? I'm generating a config file for an

nfpm_package

(deb, rpm, apk), and I need to figure out how I want people to provide the details needed for it (

name

,

version

,

arch

,

depends

, ...). I could go with individual fields or a catch-all field like

provides

. edit: oh.

provides

has a special meaning for rpm/deb/etc so I'm not using that

IIRC you used to be able to have any python or JVM library

provides

, meaning the library provides an artifact. We moved to a dedicated artifact providing target (which was a breaking change), but apparently we were weirdly conservative with the break and did not break provides.

lol. "Conservative breaking change". Thank you for filling in the history for me. 🙂