Building redistributable binaries

When python -m build or pip wheel is used to build a NumPy wheel, that wheel will rely on external shared libraries (at least for BLAS/LAPACK and a Fortran compiler runtime library, perhaps other libraries). Such wheels therefore will only run on the system on which they are built. See the pypackaging-native content under “Building and installing or uploading artifacts” for more context on that.

A wheel like that is therefore an intermediate stage to producing a binary that can be distributed. That final binary may be a wheel - in that case, run auditwheel (Linux), delocate (macOS) or delvewheel (Windows) to vendor the required shared libraries into the wheel.

The final binary may also be in another packaging format (e.g., a .rpm, .deb or .conda package). In that case, there are packaging ecosystem-specific tools to first install the wheel into a staging area, then making the extension modules in that install location relocatable (e.g., by rewriting RPATHs), and then repackaging it into the final package format.