Bug#112090: fw: Bug#112090: [PROPOSAL]: support reduced footprint debs at build time]

[David Kimdon <dwhedon@gordian.com>]

> 
> This "hack" will be fixed as boot-floppies is deprecated with the post
> woody release.  What's the point of putting it into policy?

Only reason is that this is something we obviously needed to do in the
past, so it is reasonable to expect the need in the future.  Better to have
a clean way of getting what we want.

> 
> >  - remove udeb's from the archive.  The debian-installer build system
> >    will instead build the packages from source.
> 
> Why is this such a great thing?  udeb's live in their own tree.
> Requiring all these packages to be built at debian-installer build
> time seems to add undue headache to the the debian-boot folks and
> porters.  I like that they are available separately in built form for
> testing and use...
>

hmm, maybe it is just me then.  I think the udebs are inelegant.  In binary
form they are used by very few people (true d-i at install time needs to
download binaries, but I'd suggest they all get built when the boot disks
are created).  They can't be installed on a normal Debian system. 

I see that we have a situation where we have created some specialized
handling of certain packages.  If we can find a way to generalize that
handling so that it will be useful to more people I'd call that a win.
That is what I am proposing.

-David