Why do symlinks have to be made by the install script?

Why is it said that "Correct Slackware packages do not have symlinks in the tarball"?

I reckon that this is so that the package can take account of, for example, the symlink already existing and pointing somewhere else.

If you are someone who upgrades, removes, installs packages regularly you are quite likely to run into problem with symlinks not pointing to the right places unless the packages are correctly built, i.e. with symlink creation within a post-install script.

Just because I revert from kernel-source-2.6.16 to kernel-source-2.6.15 shouldn't mean that my /usr/src/linux symlink breaks and no longer points to ANY valid kernel source directory, for instance. Post-install scripts can take account of this, archives cannot, especially if uninstalling, downgrading or upgrading the package just removes any filename it sees listed in the archive.

Thanks,
Ironically there supposedly is a problem in tar versions above 1.13 were it overwrites the symlinks when it's supposed to use them. Which is why pkgtools still uses it instead of newer versions (unless you uninstall it).