Getting rid of port binaries in /software

[Nicolas Martin]

Hi,

I have looked for real answers regarding this question through the mailing list, but did not really understand the purpose of these files.
I have almost 5Gb of archives (tbz2) in /opt/local/var/macports/software.
I have already run the port uninstall inactive command, so from my understanding, what remains in this path is from currently active and used ports.

What I don’t understand, and does not seem to be clear from any posts I have read regarding the matter, is why should these archives be kept ?

I understand that port first compress the binaries in those files, and later extracts them to /opt/local during the activation.
But once those ports are activated, why should we still keep them ?

Thanks!