On Sat, Dec 25, 2004 at 11:38:16PM -0600, Brian Elliott Finley wrote:
> I was looking at the size of the 3.5.1 source tarball I posted last
> night, and got to thinking, "Is it really necessary to include all that
> other source (non-si code, like the kernel source) in the tarball?"
> 
> From a GPL perspective, if we distribute a binary, then we must also
> distribute the source that goes with it.  
> - Since we are no longer distributing binary tarballs (stopped this
>  a long time ago), I believe it is no longer necessary for us to
>  include the source in our source tarball.

We distribute binary RPMs and debs.

> - When we distribute debs, or RPMs, it _is_ necessary to also distribute
>  their source counter parts, and in this way we achieve the open source
>  (distribute the source with the binary) objective.

Right, anybody who builds it will need the source - so why not include it
upstream?

> Can you think of any reason we should continue to upload all that non-si
> source when posting a source tarball?

How else could we reproduce what was in a release without including the source,
given that source can disappear from external sources at any point?

No reason you couldn't make the external source a separate download, but
I'd ask myself what good the purpose of a source tarball you can't rebuild is.

I suspect most of the users of the source tarball are the rpm & deb packagers,
for us having the source in the uptream tarball is convenient, and means we
don't have to track it down later (esp since urls could change, or tarballs
could disappear).

For the other users, I suspect they're also looking for something that builds
from source - I can't imagine many reasons for downloading the source tarball
if you don't want to build it.  And, if you do want just the systemimager
source w/o the 3rd party source, you can always pull a cvs tag.


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