[$] Reinventing the Python wheel

It is no secret that the Python packaging world is at something of acrossroads; there have been debates and discussions about the packaginglandscape that started long before our 2023series describing some of the difficulties. There has been progresssince then-and incremental improvements all along, in truth-but a newinitiative is looking to overhaul packaging for the language. At PyCon US 2025, Barry Warsaw andJonathan Dekhtiar gave a presentation on the WheelNext project, which is a communityeffort that aims to improve the experience for users and providers of Pythonpackages while also working with toolmakers and other parts of theecosystem to "reinvent the wheel". While the project's name refersto Python's wheelbinary distribution format, its goals stretch much further than simply theformat.