Comment 2 for bug 619294

That comment is pretty old :) The use of virtual namespace packages in Debian turned it into a reasonably elegant solution.

For the patch to be committed, we'll need more proof that not having the __init__.py for a namespace package works properly and doesn't make us vulnerable to setuptools/distribute vagaries and weird setups. Honestly, I'd rather play it safe and depend on the good-old-fashioned python import with the __init__.py. It is surprising that importing without the __init__.py worked at all.

You made a comment about requiring extra packages. I presume you mean packages like python-zope? We resolved that in debian by using a "Virtual" package. The __init__.py file is shipped in python-zope.interface which "Provides:" python-zope.

see: http://packages.debian.org/sid/python-zope

You can use diversions (dpkg-divert) in case you need multiple packages to provide the virtual namespace package.