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Re: Naming convention package <P> and <P>-devel



Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost> writes:

> I come from prior Linux background where -devel indicates a package that
> just provides header files etc of its corresponding binary package for
> development purpose.

In addition to what Joerg said, note that in pkgsrc there is not a broad
notion of packages being split into runtime and compilation pieces.
The reasons for not doing this are, roughly:

  the gain from not installing header files is small

  building multiple binary packages from one compilation is not the way
  pkgsrc works

  pkgsrc has a build-from-source mentality, even if there are binaries,
  so most people who work on pkgsrc find the notion of wanting binaries
  installed and not headers/etc. to be a somewhat bizarre special case
  that they are not inclined to spend effort to support


Basically, I think Linux only has -devel packages because

  there are only a handful of cpu architectures

  there is a strong culture of running binaries, to the point where
  building everything from source seems odd

thus the work to have header-only split packages makes more sense.

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