Packages that require enormous amounts of source

[Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu>]

Some packages, such as my package Checker, require enormous amounts of
source code that can be obtained elsewhere.  For instance, checker
needs the following files:

684366	Checker-0.8.tar.gz
5139402	binutils-2.8.1.tar.gz
7136085	gcc-2.7.2.3.tar.gz
82379	gdbm-1.7.3.tar.gz
602023	gettext-0.10.27.tar.gz
4013083	glibc-2.0.5c.tar.gz
28791	glibc-crypt-2.0.5.tar.gz
80387	glibc-linuxthreads-2.0.5.tar.gz
519066	glibc-localedata-2.0.5c.tar.gz
369832	gmp-2.0.2.tar.gz
1644088	libg++272_2.7.2.5.orig.tar.gz
1121466	ncurses-4.1.tar.gz
560670	readline-2.1.tar.gz
21981638	total

In my opinion, this is an unreasonable amount of source code to
include in a source package, since all the source code is available
elsewhere.  However, Debian policy requires *all* applicable source to
be included in a source package (right?), and a bug was recently filed
against Checker to this effect.

I think that Debian policy should be modified, in some way, to allow a
situation like this to exist and to specify some standard place that
the tarballs can be provided.  For instance, Checker expects the
tarballs in a directory called ../tarballs.

Comments?
-- 
Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu> <blp@gnu.org> <pfaffben@debian.org>
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