---
id: distribute
version: "0.7.3"
license: PSF or ZPL
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# distribute — distribute legacy wrapper

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 83.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Distribute was a compatibility shim created to bridge the gap between the old distribute package and Setuptools. It acts as a thin wrapper that, when installed, ensures Setuptools 0.7 or later is available on the system. The package was designed during a period when distribute and setuptools were separate projects, and it served as a migration path for users.

Today, distribute is a historical artifact. Setuptools and distutils have long since merged, and modern Python development relies directly on setuptools or modern build backends. Installing distribute now is almost never the right choice—it exists only to satisfy legacy constraints in very old projects that explicitly require the distribute package name.

Use it for:

- Satisfying a legacy dependency constraint in a very old Python 2 project that explicitly requires 'distribute' by name
- Porting an unmaintained Python 2 codebase that cannot be updated to use setuptools directly
- Resolving a build failure in a frozen, archived project where the distribute package is hard-coded in setup.py

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Distribute is a legacy compatibility wrapper that installs Setuptools 0.7+ as a drop-in replacement for the older distribute package.

No. Do not install distribute in new projects. It is abandoned (last release 2013-07-05) and serves no purpose in modern Python development. If you encounter it as a dependency, upgrade the dependent package or remove the constraint. If you are maintaining legacy Python 2 code, use setuptools directly instead.

## Install

pip install distribute
uv add distribute
poetry add distribute

## Installing distribute

Before you install: High install friction due to a legacy .zip distribution format. The package has been abandoned for many years with no recent maintenance, making it unsuitable for new projects.

License in practice: Licensed under PSF or ZPL (permissive), so there are no legal restrictions on use, but the abandoned status makes licensing guarantees moot.

Quickstart:

pip install distribute==0.7.3
# This installs Setuptools 0.7+ as a replacement

This package is abandoned and will not work correctly on modern Python versions or current system environments despite its classifiers.

Verify before relying:

- Whether this package still functions correctly with modern Python versions despite classifiers claiming support for Python 2.4–3.3
- Whether installing this package on modern systems actually delivers a working Setuptools 0.7+ installation
- Whether the .zip distribution format creates compatibility issues on current package management tooling

## Package facts

- License: PSF or ZPL (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: high
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 83.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

setuptools compatibility layer, legacy distribute wrapper, python package distribution, setuptools upgrade, distutils replacement, legacy, abandoned

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/distribute) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/distribute/)