The github repository was downloaded instead of the pypi repository
for testing (needed `conftest.py`). Major work was done on the
underlying dependencies to make distributed work on python 2.7,
3+. Note that the test **do** take a significant amount of time (10-15
minutes).
- moved to `python-modules`
- compatible with 2.7, 3+
- all tests pass (previously tests were not run)