[LEDE-DEV] What's the purpose / gain from using VARIANT?

[Rafał Miłecki]

I'm aware some packages (e.g. upstream-ssl, hostapd, dnsmasq) use VARIANT.

I don't really understand the gain of this. How does it differ from
specifying separated packages?
I'm looking at package/libs/ustream-ssl/Makefile and I don't see much
code saving from using this VARIANT variable/feature.
Looking at package/system/opkg/Makefile I can see BUILD_VARIANT is
used for more specific CONFIGURE_ARGS. Is that where VARIANTS gets
really helpful?
Maybe I'm missing some real gain/value?

-- 
Rafał