Darrell, All,

  Investigating the default sip packages provided by arch I find: sip (python3)
and python2-sip (python2). What arch has done is build /usr/bin/sip with
python3, but still provides all the packages we provide in sip4-tqt in the
python2-sip package. I wonder if this might not be a better setup. Specifically
here is the current arch package setup:

22:44 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Ql python2-sip
python2-sip /usr/
python2-sip /usr/bin/
python2-sip /usr/include/
python2-sip /usr/include/python2.7/
python2-sip /usr/include/python2.7/sip.h
python2-sip /usr/lib/
python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/
python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sip.so
python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipconfig.py
python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipdistutils.py
python2-sip /usr/share/
python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/
python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/python2-sip/
python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/python2-sip/LICENSE

22:45 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Ql sip
sip /usr/
sip /usr/bin/
sip /usr/bin/sip
sip /usr/include/
sip /usr/include/python3.2mu/
sip /usr/include/python3.2mu/sip.h
sip /usr/lib/
sip /usr/lib/python3.2/
sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/
sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sip.so
sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sipconfig.py
sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sipdistutils.py
sip /usr/share/
sip /usr/share/licenses/
sip /usr/share/licenses/sip/
sip /usr/share/licenses/sip/LICENSE

  The sip4-tqt provides essentially what the arch python2-sip package provides
EXCEPT /usr/bin/sip which is provided by the python3 based sip package. If the
python3 sip is backwards compatible with the sip4-tqt needs, then couldn't I
simply replace the python2-sip package on arch with the sip2-tqt package without
the binary and keep both the original Arch sip package and sip4-tqt installed
and use the existing sip binary?

  The sip4-tqt package I just built includes the following:

22:45 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Qpl
tde-sip4-tqt-3513_tqt-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/bin/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/bin/sip
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/python2.7/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/python2.7/sip.h
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sip.so
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipconfig.py
tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipdistutils.py

  That would be a neat way to have sip cover both python2 as well as python3.
What say the experts?

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.