Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:14:48 -0600
> Michael Parson <mparson@bl.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 06:50:24PM +0100, Christian Biere wrote:
> > > Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> > >> One thing that Debian does a lot more than pkgsrc is to create
> > >> separate packages for libraries, headers/includes, applications,
> > >> and documentation. 
> > >
> > > Which completely defeats the idea of free open-source software.
 
> Hardly.

I guess you never talked to a Debian user.

> > Probably more of a general Linux thing than just Debian, at least,
> > RedHat has done the same thing for years.  Not everyone that is
> > running Linux wants/needs the sources installed on every box.  It can
> > be annoying when you figure out you need foo, go off and install it,
> > then realize you also need the foo-dev package.

> I don't want source on every box, except maybe to let me read certain
> files.

I assume Debian users are equally confused which is why they believe in
this in the first place. All the -dev packages usually omit are *header*
files. /usr/include has 13 MiB here, /usr/pkg/include has 15 MiB and now
look at the average disk size nowadays. 200 GiB? Do you really think it's
worth an hour of googling, updating backwards, forwards until your system
is completely trashed to save this little amount of diskspace?

> Why should my little Soekris gateway need source, when it
> doesn't even have a compiler?  It doesn't even have enough RAM for one,
> nor does it have a disk to swap to.

Is Debian suitable for tiny embedded systems? Hardly. You need a special
distro or installation for that anyway. Debian is for servers and desktops.

-- 
Christian