Debian and derivatives already mitigate the potential harm for thesecases by requiring the "--install-layout=deb" option to be passed toget distutils to install into the system directories rather than doingit by default: https://wiki.debian.org/Python#Deviations_from_upstreamTheir approach means that any harm caused by "sudo pip install X" cansubsequently be fully reversed by doing "sudo pip uninstall X".
For whatever it’s worth, at some point in time I plan on attempting to formalize the Debian solution (or something akin to it) within a PEP and try to get baked in support for it in Python.
I also feel required to point out that ``sudo pip uninstall`` isn’t always enough, because while the two systems install to different locations, pip currently will uninstall the files in /usr when installing to /usr/local. They’ve patched their copy of pip to refuse to uninstall files from /usr, but upstream pip will still do it. Again, something I hope to get sorted at some point (and of course, an upgrade totally restores the files in /usr).