[csw-maintainers] Handling of devel package splits

[Philip Brown]

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Sebastian Kayser <skayser at opencsw.org> wrote:
> ....
> That's why i was asking:
> Would going back to don't have devel splits *at all* also be an option?
>

That would result in certain packages quadrupling in size, I think.
Mostly this is to do with the libfoo.a splitout.

download size IS an issue for some set of our users. That is after
all, why we split out _rt packages.

I will say this, as something to ruminate on:
Having 100% consistency, purely for consistency's sake alone, is not a
good thing, in my opinion.
It is not the greatest benefit to the greatest amount of users.

Dago's arguments for always splitting, are "consistency, and security".
I have just addressed the first here, and the second I think is
fallacious. Come on now, how does it really lower security, to have
header files on the system, for completely public software? !!!

even if it did... it wouldnt do any good unless you have a COMPILER on
the system. Dont want people to compile stuff on your system? Remove
the compiler. Simple. Then it doesnt matter if there are header files,
or any other development paraphernalia on the system.

If a potential attacker can somehow install their own compiler.. they
can sure install their own header files too!!!