Current state of python namespace packages

I would like to have several python sub modules inside a main module, but I want to distribute them as separated python packages. So package A should provide 'my_data.source_a', package B should provide 'my_data.source_b', ... and so on.

I found out that I have to use a namespace package for this, but trying to figuring out the details, I found multiple PEPs covering that problem. PEP 420 seems to be the latest one, which builds upon PEP 402 and PEP 382.

To me it's not clear what the status of the different PEPs an implementations is. So my question is: Is http://pythonhosted.org/distribute/setuptools.html#namespace-packages still the way to go or how should I build my namespace package?

The latest version of Python which is Python 3.7 uses the native namespace packages approach to create namespace packages which are defined in PEP 420.

There are currently three different approaches to creating namespace packages:

1. Use native namespace packages. This type of namespace package is defined in PEP 420 and is available in Python 3.3 and later. This is recommended if packages in your namespace only ever need to support Python 3 and installation via pip.
2. Use pkgutil-style namespace packages. This is recommended for new packages that need to support Python 2 and 3 and installation via both pip and python setup.py install.
3. Use pkg_resources-style namespace packages. This method is recommended if you need compatibility with packages already using this method or if your package needs to be zip-safe.

Reference: Packaging namespace packages