Source packages appropriate by default?

[Daniel J Blueman]

On 23 July 2013 16:24, Andreas Moog <andreas.moog at warperbbs.de> wrote:
> On 23.07.2013 09:12, Robie Basak wrote:
> [...]
>> E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list
>> E: Type "add-apt-repository sources" to do this automatically for you.
>> $ sudo add-apt-repository sources
>> deb-src lines have been added to your sources.list.
>> Now type "apt-get update", and then "apt-get source ..." will work.
>> $ sudo apt-get update
>> (...)
>> $ sudo apt-get source hello
>> (works)
>>
>> To do this, we'd need to patch apt to add the second error line, and
>> implement "sources" to add-apt-repository.
>
> andreas at j3515:~$ sudo add-apt-repository
> The program 'add-apt-repository' is currently not installed.  You can
> install it by typing:
> sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
> andreas at j3515:~$
>
> add-apt-repository is not available on all Ubuntu systems by default.

add-apt-repository is installed by default on desktop installs. On
non-desktop seeds, it is still available, just not installed.

> The current solution is easy and is available on virtually all
> installations, without the need to manually install anything. Providing
> easy access to the source is essential for a open source distribution.

You're focussing on Ubuntu as a complete solution and not a platform
or enabler in stating that easy access to source is essential. Do you
agree that >99% of users don't care about source? For those who do,
it's easy to find and tweak sources button in the software sources
applet, no?

>From deploying in the real world (eg countries without domestic
mirrors or with radio links), reducing bandwidth requirements of
updates makes a important difference.

Daniel
--
Daniel J Blueman