DOC: description of _distribution_init for release

Add description of ``numpy/_distribution_init.py`` file and init hook to
release notes for 1.12.0.

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/release/1.12.0-notes.rst b/doc/release/1.12.0-notes.rst
index 62c056c55..754427370 100644
--- a/doc/release/1.12.0-notes.rst
+++ b/doc/release/1.12.0-notes.rst
@@ -106,6 +106,18 @@ Building against the BLAS implementation provided by the BLIS library is now
 supported.  See the ``[blis]`` section in ``site.cfg.example`` (in the root of
 the numpy repo or source distribution).
 
+Hook in ``numpy/__init__.py`` to run distribution-specific checks
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Binary distributions of numpy may need to run specific hardware checks or load
+specific libraries during numpy initialization.  For example, if we are
+distributing numpy with a BLAS library that requires SSE2 instructions, we
+would like to check the machine on which numpy is running does have SSE2 in
+order to give an informative error.
+
+Add a hook in ``numpy/__init__.py`` to import a ``numpy/_distributor_init.py``
+file that will remain empty (bar a docstring) in the standard numpy source,
+but that can be overwritten by people making binary distributions of numpy.
 
 Improvements
 ============