Re: census: missing source packages

[Amaya <amaya@debian.org>]

FWIW I'll explain my personal case here.

Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> [...] it should be done in a constructive way. After all, I doubt that
> any Debian derivative out there is doing that on purpose or trying to
> deliver patched packages whose sources are unknown. It's more likely
> they do not realize that there is a problem, e.g. by assuming that
> given that Debian has the sources anyhow they are fine.

I could not agree more. I have only been working at OSSIM for a month,
but from what I see, even though we don't provide source packages, we do
provide access to a full git repo with most of the changes. Changes,
OTOH consist mostly of config changes, or small build-time tweaks to
provide such or such functionality (not enabled by default in debian for
whatever reason). 

People here are simply too busy and surprisingly unaware of this issue
until I mentioned it. There's good will to contribute changes back to
debian and upstream, there's simply too few resources. I'll be doing my
best to spot the relevant stuff worth being contributed back. People
tend to think that Debian "has the sources anyway and we are fine".

> Aside, on the derivative guidelines we should mention clearly that not
> providing sources is not OK and likely to get derivatives into
> trouble.

Absolutely. And I'd also not assume bad faith by default. yes, really.

-- 
 .''`.     Let evolution finish its work
: :' :
`. `'
  `-    Proudly running Debian GNU/Linux