diff --git a/Lib/distutils/command/install.py b/Lib/distutils/command/install.py
index 2a18fb9..746ca1f 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/command/install.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/command/install.py
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@
         self.install_scripts = None
         self.install_data = None
 
-        self.compile = 0
+        self.compile = None
         self.optimize = None
 
         # These two are for putting non-packagized distributions into their