[sugar] Security for plugins: eggs, easyinstall, setuptools, distutils, buildutils, paste, etc

[Don Hopkins]

The TurboGears web framework, and other Python web frameworks like wsgi, 
use Python eggs, easyinstall, setuptools, distutils, buildutils, paste, 
and other systems to package code and manage plug-ins for web servers, 
template engines, and other components.

http://www.turbogears.org
http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/setuptools
http://pythonpaste.org/
http://groovie.org/articles/2005/10/04/python-paste-power

I've been wondering how the Python version of SimCity can expose a bunch 
of different plug-in interfaces, like zones, disasters, editing tools, 
and locate resources and compiled Python extensions associated with each 
plug-in, etc.
And how can the development tool and other Python based visual 
programming languages support programming and packaging plug-ins?

I'd appreciate it if anyone who understands that stuff could please 
point out some good web pages about Python plug-in frameworks, explain 
some of the issues and solutions available to Python programmers, or 
describe the big picture behind the design of setuptools, Python eggs, 
paste, etc!

    -Don