SPM / Python interpreter help

[Lilli]

I am considering developing against SPM for a project.  In doing
research about the software, I used Synaptic to install the latest
release of smart (.50) available.  It worked fine.  I wanted to look
into the code so I tried to download smart-0.52 to my Ubuntu Feisty
machine.  I also downloaded the stable release of Python (2.5.1).  I
went into the smart-0.52 directory and typed '$sudo make' followed by
'$sudo make install'.  Compilation worked fine, but when I followed it
with '$smart --gui', I got this Python error: 

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/smart", line 27, in <module>
    from smart import init, initDistro, initPlugins, initPsyco
ImportError: No module named smart

I Googled help, and I tried completely uninstalling/reinstalling the
smart-0.50 package I had installed.  This allowed me to successfully run
the version of smart I got from Synaptic, but as soon as I compiled the
source code, the problem returned.  I tried uninstalling/reinstalling
different versions of smart and Python.  Still, the problem persists.

Is there still a maintainer of this project?  Has this issue come up
before?  Are there any BKMs for me to be able to compile the source code
on an Ubuntu Feisty machine without Python "losing" the module?  Am I
even using the correct commands?

Any help would be appreciated!

Also, there is a project called Debtags, which uses a Library Sciences
method of categorization to classify debian packages beyond the
section/group value within the package.  This allows searching packages
much quicker and easier.  Is there anything like this for RPM packages?
Or, at the very least, is there a deterministic way to map Debian
Packages with RPM packages?