Backport deb sources

John Dong wrote:

>
>
> On 10/26/05, *Sam Liddicott* <sam at liddicott.com 
> <mailto:sam at liddicott.com>> 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 <http://Kanotix.com> or archive.kalyxo.org 
> <http://archive.kalyxo.org> sources, whichever matches up the version. 
> In the future, we may actually be deriving from Seveas's 
> ubuntulinux.nl <http://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.

>
> Any time that we actually modify the sources in any way, a patch will 
> be provided at http://ubuntubackports.org/ubp/sources/

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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