[$] Reinventing the Python wheel

It is no secret that the Python packaging world is at something of a
crossroads; there have been debates and discussions about the packaging
landscape that started long before our 2023
series describing some of the difficulties. There has been progress
since then—and incremental improvements all along, in truth—but a new
initiative is looking to overhaul packaging for the language. At PyCon US 2025, Barry Warsaw and
Jonathan Dekhtiar gave a presentation on the WheelNext project, which is a community
effort that aims to improve the experience for users and providers of Python
packages while also working with toolmakers and other parts of the
ecosystem to 'reinvent the wheel'. While the project's name refers
to Python's wheel
binary distribution format, its goals stretch much further than simply the
format.