> > Build time of cups isn't really an issue. But the dependency chain > > around cups is already very delicate, and anything involving optional > > dependencies for a library gets *really* awkward further down the chain. > > How about package splitting? cups doesn't require avahi binaries or XML > dbus entries (org.freedesktop.Avahi.Something.xml), it can only use > libavahi-client and libavahi-common shared libraries, so let them be in > avahi-libs or libavahi or whatever. The same applies to dbus packages; > they're big and fat with a lot of executables, but many programmes only > need libdbus.so.
So basically you are saying the ports developers, who have worked very hard, haven't built things exactly the way you want. Did I get that right? By the way who are you? Are you proposing to write a diff which handles all the cases, or are you offloading a proposal on other people -- a proposal you came up with in the last hour or so? You come off as pretty uncharitable. > Since we started the topic, another example: as I am typing this in > mutt, why would I need the entire cyrus-sasl, if mutt-sasl only needs > libsasl? Because decisions were made by some people, to try to satisfy the most common requirements. > It's already done by various package managers, some of them are ugly, > some of them are pretty cool. Most of them split packages into -dev, > -doc, -lang, and lib-, of course in case of having files that fit > these categories: > headers and such - in -dev; > man/info pages, pdf/html docs - in -doc; > /usr/local/share/locale files - in -lang; > shared libs - in lib-. More complexity. I don't think you are listening. The ports developers make economical decisions as to how things get coupled, because the upstreams keep changing their minds. You can seperate things, and a year down the line that seperation doesn't work anymore. Then it all has to be redone. It seems there aren't enough people in the ports tree to satisfy the complex requirements you describe.
