[mwcampbell]

Having read the arguments on this thread, and having seen the pathologies of a single mega-repository of packages as in Debian (e.g. long release cycles, breaking stability policies for the major web browsers), I think that Ian Murdock's former company Progeny was on the right track with its component-based Debian derivative. As I remember it, the idea was to have a small base system, then have separate components for things like GNOME, Firefox, OpenOffice.org (now LibreOffice), etc.

Meanwhile, Ubuntu's split between main and universe/multiverse is a pretty good compromise. I wouldn't be disappointed if Ubuntu jettisoned universe and multiverse, the better to focus on having a solid main repository, and let a thousand small, focused repositories pick up the slack. As long as all of those repositories leave the packages in main alone, as EPEL does with Red Hat-based systems.