Basket is a small command-line utility that downloads Python packages
from a (real) PyPI server and store them in a single place so that
they can be found by easy_install or pip when offline.
I often work offline (typically in the train). It is not unusal then to have to create a virtual environment and fill it with the Python packages I need. Without an Internet connection, I could copy Python packages from an environment to another, but this is a bit cumbersome. I need a local PyPI repository. Basket allows me to build and maintain such a repository.
Basket is not a PyPI mirror. It is not a server: you cannot register or upload packages. It does not install Python packages in a Python installation or a virtual environment.
For further details, see the documentation at http://packages.python.org/Basket (or in the docs/ folder in the source).