[maemo-developers] Extras-devel repository index out of control?

[From: Marius Vollmer]

Hi,

even I have noticed now that apt uses a lot more space than it used to.

One reason is that the package index files in the repository contain
entries for multiple versions of a package.  This increases the size of
what apt has to download, process, and store significantly, and for no
real benefit.

For example, 

    http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/dists/fremantle/free/binary-armel/Packages

is about 13M, and has 25 versions of conboy-midgard listed in it, and 29
versions of gpxview[1].

I don't know if there is a mechanism in place to control this growth,
but there should be.

I think it would be fine to retain only the most recent version for each
package in extras-devel.  We can still keep older versions in the pool,
and we can even make a extras-history repository that indexes all these
old versions.  But for extras-devel itself, I think having only one
version is best.


[1] But only 5 versions of mussorgsky.  Ivan, release early, release
    often!