Should sdists include docs and tests?

[CAM-Gerlach]

EDIT: Added the predecessor messages that were relevant to this thread

@fungi

@CAM-Gerlach

@merwok

There is often resistance when people request that tests be included in sdists.

Coming from a package author/upstream perspective, I don’t have a problem with doing so, but what I’ve had a hard time understanding is why downstreams don’t just use the source tarballs, as they are the definitive source form of the project, whereas the sdist is nominally for user consumption. I can see why that is the case for special cases like @pf_moore where very restrictive corporate policies are in place, but not for Linux distro downstreams or other open source projects I have more inclination to spend my volunteer time supporting.

our sdist release process incorporates information
(versions, authors, changes…) extracted from our Git metadata at
build time.

I see. Is that with setuptools_scm, or custom tooling?