Open Stack

Here is the rule of thumb:

If it is required to reproduce the code as deployed, it needs to be 
packaged by the distribution.

If it is a tool used by the developer to make development easier, it 
does not *need* to be packaged by the distribution.    If it is easier 
for a developer to use non-distribution tools to affect change in the 
project, but can then add their changes in to their deployed server 
without the non-distribution tool, it is acceptable to leave that tool 
out of the distribution.

Hence, the real distinction should be between generated files and 
original source.  If a file is generated, the distribution needs to 
provide the original source and the tools to perform the generation.   
In theory, if that generated file is human editable and readable text, 
deploying only the text might be OK, we need to make a decision if we 
would want to


The distribution packagers will make sure that what is essential is 
packaged.  Lets not limit our tool choice based on that.  Instead, let 
us just be aware that every tool selected for the end product puts an 
additional burden on the packagers, and only select the tools that are:

A. Required to improve the product
B. Reasonable to deploy due to licensing and dependencies.

Example:  I don't need Grunt to run a web server.  I need Apache for 
that.  Grunt does not need to be in the distro, mod_wsgi does.