I've been meaning to upload a pike7.8 package to unstable for some time, but first I want to fix the set of binary packages, among them the metapackages. There are currently two - pike7.8, which depends on a smaller set of modules, and pike7.8-full, which pulls in all the module packages there are. The actual pike binary and core modules are in pike7.8-core.

I think one metapackage should be enough, and some people have complained about Debian that when they apt-get install foo, they don't get foo (what they would get by downloading the source and running ./configure && make && sudo make install) but a "recommended subset" or just the main binary, but not the documentation, development files, or optional modules.

The main reason that many of the Pike modules are put in separate packages is that they together add a large number of dependencies. Contrast with Perl and Python, where such things as GTK2+ bindings are separate projects.

My plan for simplifying things while catering to various wishes is to * remove pike7.8-full * let pike7.8 Recommend all other packages. That way everything will be installed if you run apt-get install pike7.8 unless you have switched off automatic installation of recommended packages, but it's still possible to opt out of individual packages.