John Dong wrote:
On 10/26/05, Sam Liddicott <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
First,
I thank those responsible for their work in making backports
available.
I am one of the complainers that make this a sometimes thankless task.
In the past I have asked about deb-src to backports and been informed
that they are actually breezy sources. I think this is not always the
case, as FreeNX is available for breezy only on breezy backports
(thankyou), and no source.
Sources are not always derived from Breezy sources -- FreeNX is derived
from Kanotix.com or archive.kalyxo.org sources,
whichever matches up
the version. In the future, we may actually be deriving from Seveas's
ubuntulinux.nl sources.
The reason we decided not to provide a source location is because for
99% of the time, it's a waste of space and a duplication of effort. On
our (privately donated) servers, the last thing we'd like to do is
waste space.
Indeed, and a good reason; The GPL FAQ mentions that this is not enough:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCSourceAndBinaryOnDifferentSites
It's still legal by the GPL for me to provide sources by e-mail
request, though it isn't always the most convenient.
Aye but then you have to provide the sources for 3 years which is a
major headache, rather just do what everyone else does and keep the
source online for as long as the binary is online and sucks to anyone
who forgot to download the source when they got the binary.
The GPL FAQ also mentions this:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributingSourceIsInconvenient
However, Extras and Backports are a blessing and I am anxious to add to
the solution, not to the problem.
I'm happy to privately donate some money (if you can keep it simple,
I've tried to donate to debian before, but its too complicated), but
I'd rather help remove this class of problem.
Is the problem hosting sources on the internet, or storage of the
sources at all?
The GPL makes it clear that the only sane low-admin way is that THE
sources must be with THE binaries or to make other formal arrangements
to have them made available.
Is the best solution going to be more hard disks sent to you, or more
bandwidth sent to you? ("you" being the blessed gang who are doing all
this)
Sam
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