How can I make setuptools ignore subversion inventory?

Probably the answer is in your setup.py. Do you use find_packages? This function by default uses the VCS (e.g. subversion, hg, ...). If you don't like it, just write a different Python function which collects only the things you want.

Simple solution, do not use setuptools for creating the source distribution, downgrade to distutils for that command:

from distutils.command.sdist import sdist
from setuptools import setup

setup(
    # ... all the usual setup arguments ...
    cmdclass = {'sdist': sdist},
)

I know you know much of this, Brandon, but I'll try to give as a complete answer as I can (although I'm no setuptools gury) for the benefit of others.

The problem here is that setuptools itself involves quite a lot of black magick, including using an entry point called setuptools.file_finders where you can add plugins to find files to include. I am, however, at a complete loss as to how REMOVE plugins from it...

• Quick workaround: svn export your package to a temporary directory and run the setup.py from there. That means you have no svn, so the svn finder finds no files to include. :)

• Longer workaround: Do you really need setuptools? Setuptools have a lot of features, so the answer is likely yes, but mainly those features are depdenencies (so your dependencies get installed by easy_install), namespace packages (foo.bar), and entry points. Namespace packages can actually be created without setuptools as well. But if you use none of these you might actually get away with just using distutils.

• Ugly workaround: The monkeypatch you gave to sdist in your question, which simply makes the plugin not have any finders, and exit quickly.

So as you see, this answer, although as complete as I can make it, is still embarrassingly incomplete. I can't actually answer your question, though I think the answer is "You can't".

Create a MANIFEST.in file with:

recursive-exclude .
# other MANIFEST.in commands go here
# to explicitly include whatever files you want

See http://docs.python.org/distutils/commandref.html#sdist-cmd for the MANIFEST.in syntax.