On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, Berndt Josef Wulf wrote:

> Why not add only those dependencies that are required to buld and run the
> package and leave optional dependencies to the user?

Because judicious addition of things not required to build and run the
package make life much easier. For example, I'd say that in general
one should include multiple character set, multibyte character set and
Unicode support in any package that has it, even if it's turned off in
the default build. Then you don't have users going through the agony of
wondering whether they can process a particular file on some particular
machine without building private versions of a bunch of packages.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org
    Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light.  --XTC