This makes sense, and the DEP looks great. Just a few thoughts:
- Django has always had dependencies, just external to PyPI. Python itself is the obvious one. While not absolutely required for Django, a database driver stack is another (psycopg2, mysql-connector, pyodbc, etc). Perhaps we can look into the maturity levels of these existing dependencies for some concrete ideas on what sort of requirements will be needed for stable Python packages to be included.
- This should go without saying, but to be explicit, it may be worth noting that any packages must support the same versions of Python that current Django versions support, including LTS releases. I have actually run into a similar issue in the past not directly with Django, but relating to developer environments (Red Hat 6.x having system Python v. 2.6.6, no longer being compatible with virtualenv's newer versions). This is tangentially related to the "Backwards compatible" section of the DEP.
Regards,
Tim