It occurred to me that Geert Hendrickx wrote in gmane.os.netbsd.devel.packages:
> On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 08:06:04PM +0000, Martijn van Buul wrote:
>> kdevelop-3.2.0 is a meta-package, containing dependencies to (among
>> others) kdevelop-base (which contains the "real" Kdevelop), as well as
>> packages you really need to use kdevelop (like kdbg)
>> 
>> You want to install kdevelop. Kdevelop-base will be pulled in on the
>> way.
>
> Then maybe the DESCR files should reflect this difference?  
> (as mentioned by OP, they're identical)

I agree wholeheartedly. kdevelop-base seems to be the 'real kdevelop',
and is certainly a workable package on its own - except that you'd miss
some of the inline debugging capablities, and lack some documentation.

Personally, I'd much rather see a metapackage in the appropriate place
(meta-pkgs, not devel) containing "things you probably want if you want
to develop for kde".