Move distutils import to a separate file to avoid linter errors.

setuptools/__init__.py

@@ -2,6 +2,9 @@
 
 import os
 import functools
+
+import setuptools.distutils_patch  # noqa: F401
+
 import distutils.core
 import distutils.filelist
 import re

setuptools/distutils_patch.py

+"""
+Ensure that the local copy of distutils is preferred over stdlib.
+
+See https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/417#issuecomment-392298401
+for more motivation.
+"""
+
+import sys
+import importlib
+from os.path import dirname
+
+
+sys.path.insert(0, dirname(dirname(__file__)))
+importlib.import_module('distutils')
+sys.path.pop(0)