Re: cleaning up our task packages

[Seth Arnold <sarnold@willamette.edu>]

* Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> [001206 21:30]:
>   Task packages are packages whose names are prefixed with `task-'.
>   Typically they are empty metapackages that merely depend on a collection
>   of other packages.

Joey, nice work; I agree with the general gist of what you are aiming
for. When I saw the list, I thought to myself, ``this doesn't buy much
over selecting the packages by hand''.

However, I think we can agree that many of these packages are *useful*,
even if they shouldn't be shown at tasksel time; perhaps renaming the
cut packages to be: meta-netscape or meta-c-programming or
meta-kde-everything ... would be very handy in allowing those who like
gnome to say, ``I want gnome, but I don't want to drag KDE along with
it, and I don't know which packages make a good gnome system.''

I think we will see more of these users in the future, particularly as
individual application suites gain more acclaim in the world. (I have
friends who think Helix Code *IS* gnome, and ask me upon seeing sawfish
running, ``oh, you run Helix?'' -- a meta-gnome-blinkenflashen would
help friends such as this. And no, no amount of explaining has helped. :)

It might help the egos of those that have put effort into the task-
packages that would be cut, as well. :)

-- 
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