Drop requirement for setuptools package from setup.py

[jdufresne]

setuptools is shipped with Python, no need to include it as a requirement. It
is bad form to include it as a requirement as pip will try to pull in the
latest version.

[untitaker]

Yeah that wouldn't work anyway since we already import setuptools at the top of setup.py.

I'd like to hear somebody else's opinion on this though.

[untitaker]

In any case this is probably worth a changelog entry.

[jdufresne]

I have added a note to the changelog. Please let me know if you'd like any wording adjusted. All feedback welcome, thanks.

[kevin-brown]

I'm 👍 on this change, for the reasons mentioned in the intro post.

Yeah that wouldn't work anyway since we already import setuptools at the top of setup.py.

This applies for cases where setup.py is executed during installation, which is all of the cases for icalendar.

[untitaker]

Ok, thanks!

[mauritsvanrees]

I agree with the change, but I think there are a few mistakes in the reasoning here, so let me add some comments.

• setuptools is not shipped with Python. Maybe in some versions, but certainly not all.
• Just because setuptools is imported in the top of the file does not mean that adding it in install_requires is useless: as far as I know, packaging tools can actually handle this.
• But setuptools is usually only needed when you have a namespace package. That is not the case here, so removing setuptools is fine.

BTW, I wouldn't call this a 'breaking change'. See this question and answer on semver.org that says an update in dependencies does not mean you are suddenly backwards incompatible. There will be cases where it is better to do that, but not here.
So I have removed that sub header and filed the changelog entry under 'Bug fixes'.

I have released version 3.11.3 with this change. Thank you!