This shouldn't be possible as long as you get a wheel (try configuring the installer to require wheels). The download script in the source distribution can do w

This shouldn't be possible as long as you get a wheel (try configuring the installer to require wheels). The download script in the source distribution can do what it wants, of course, and I agree that this isn't the greatest behaviour. My guess is that they do this in order to put the binary in a specific location of a container, as part of their own build process. The ecosystem doesn't distinguish between "source distributions" intended to build on a user's vs. developer's machine.