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This provides some additional context for why the pre-built binary was added:

https://github.com/serde-rs/serde/issues/2584#issue-18580752...

Due to the way that the derive feature was causing the dependency chain in Cargo to be longer than necessary, thereby making it impossible for cargo to compile multiple crates in parallel.

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Isn't that a parallel concern? The dependency chain is a separate issue from just building serde_derive itself isn't it?

The dependency chain is what led to the longer compile times and why the prebuilt binary existed. It was to shave time off how long it would take to get serde with the "derive" feature enabled compiled.

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