https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/95299: Do not pre-install setuptools in virtual environments created with venv. This means that distutils, setuptools, pkg_resources, and easy_install will no longer available by default; to access these run pip install setuptools in the activated virtual environments
NOTE: it could have been possible to add setuptools to requirement to continue using pkg_resources but it gives a deprecation warning
@rewati-arista the reasoning is in the old PR #261
Here is a portion of the info:
https://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.12.html
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/95299: Do not pre-install setuptools in virtual environments created with venv. This means that distutils, setuptools, pkg_resources, and easy_install will no longer available by default; to access these run pip install setuptools in the activated virtual environments
NOTE: it could have been possible to add setuptools to requirement to continue using pkg_resources but it gives a deprecation warning