Why Kali installs both metasploit and metasploit-framework packages by default?

[rufe]

Vanilla installation of Kali Linux comes with both metasploit and metasploit-framework packages installed.

metasploit-framework package includes the free open-source framework only and keeps all its msf* binaries in /usr/share/metasploit-framework/

metasploit package includes both framework and Rapid7 commercial Metasploit Pro add-ons and keeps its msf* binaries in /opt/metasploit/apps/pro/msf3

All calls to msf* binaries, e.g. msfconsole, or msfvenom are currently resolved to those in /opt/metasploit/apps/pro/msf3/ directory of metasploit package.

Binaries in /usr/share/metasploit-framework/ don't even work out of the box: /usr/share/metasploit-framework/msfconsole doesn't start showing "Could not find rake-10.4.2 in any of the sources. Run `bundle install` to install missing gems." error.

So what is the purpose of keeping the metasploit-framework package installed on the system anyway? In what cases is it actually used?

[dookie]

In short, the metasploit-framework package contains all the exploits, auxiliary modules, payloads, etc. i.e. The open source stuff.

[rufe]

metasploit package includes the open-source framework and the commercial Rapid7 part. While metasploit-framework package only includes the open-source part.
Compare the size of corresponding directories, the size is same, they don't differ:

# metasploit-framework package
rookt@kali:/# cd /usr/share/metasploit-framework
rookt@kali:/usr/share/metasploit-framework# du -s
151044

# metasploit package, that incorporates the framework
rookt@kali:/# cd /opt/metasploit/apps/pro/msf3
rookt@kali:/opt/metasploit/apps/pro/msf3# du -s
151044

The only thing that comes to my mind is that some external tools may be dependant on the metasploit framework location at /usr/share/metasploit-framework.

[rufe]

The only thing that comes to my mind is that some external tools may be dependant on the metasploit framework location at /usr/share/metasploit-framework.

But then ln -s would probably do the job.

Another thing I see is that all m-f package created links in /usr/bin/ directory are replaced by the m package links pointing to its copy of binaries. That is m-f package installs /usr/bin/msfvenom link pointing to /usr/share/metasploit-framework/msfvenom, and the m package replaces it with the one pointing to /opt/metasploit/apps/pro/msf3/msfvenom, while renaming the original one to /usr/bin/msfvenom.framework.