Re: Package variant selection policy using meta packages

[Peter Samuelson <peter@p12n.org>]

[Joachim Breitner]
> > And a foo-dev Recommends: foo-prof is not suitable because?
> 
> because we cannot tell what the user will want. For example, a user of
> xmonad will not want -prof packages installed, and an addition 400MB of
> useless stuff on his computer is not in his, and hence our, interest.

So, it appears xmonad is a window manager.  It seems a fair question
why someone who runs a window manager needs -dev packages at all, let
alone -prof packages.

According to the package description, you only need the -dev package if
you actually plan to configure the window manager instead of using its
defaults.  Which presumably most people do, so I guess the Recommends
makes sense.  Excpet for the part where this requires one or more -dev
packages at all.  It looks as though configuring xmonad involves
_recompiling_ it.  What is this, an old school Unix kernel?  I'm
confused.

Peter