diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-protobuf/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-protobuf/package.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..da3a65c22e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/py-protobuf/package.py
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+##############################################################################
+# Copyright (c) 2013-2016, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.
+# Produced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
+#
+# This file is part of Spack.
+# Created by Todd Gamblin, tgamblin@llnl.gov, All rights reserved.
+# LLNL-CODE-647188
+#
+# For details, see https://github.com/llnl/spack
+# Please also see the LICENSE file for our notice and the LGPL.
+#
+# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (as
+# published by the Free Software Foundation) version 2.1, February 1999.
+#
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the IMPLIED WARRANTY OF
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the terms and
+# conditions of the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
+# License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
+##############################################################################
+from spack import *
+
+
+class PyProtobuf(Package):
+    """Protocol buffers are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral,
+    extensible mechanism for serializing structured data - think XML, but
+    smaller, faster, and simpler. You define how you want your data to be
+    structured once, then you can use special generated source code to easily
+    write and read your structured data to and from a variety of data streams
+    and using a variety of languages."""
+
+    homepage = 'https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/'
+    url      = 'https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/protobuf/protobuf-3.0.0b2.tar.gz'
+
+    version('3.0.0b2', 'f0d3bd2394345a9af4a277cd0302ae83')
+    version('2.6.1', '6bf843912193f70073db7f22e2ea55e2')
+    version('2.5.0', '338813f3629d59e9579fed9035ecd457')
+    version('2.4.1', '72f5141d20ab1bcae6b1e00acfb1068a')
+    version('2.3.0', 'bb020c962f252fe81bfda8fb433bafdd')
+
+    extends('python')
+
+    depends_on('py-setuptools')
+
+    def install(self, spec, prefix):
+        python('setup.py', 'install', '--prefix={0}'.format(prefix))