AGPLv3 Compliance and Debian Users

[Lars Meyser <lars.meyser@yahoo.com>]

Hi,

with the recent discussion about the AGPLv3 I am wondering what the
implications for users of Debian packages are. Debian packages often contain
modifications in the form of patches, since the Debian project is only a
distributor it complies to the license by making available the sources of the
package.  However, as soon as I (as a Debian user) install such a package and
that package consists of a network service with which others interact, I have
to "prominently" offer my users a way to retrieve the source of the Debian
package as well in order to comply with the terms of the AGPLv3.  Now the
problem is that Debian packages under the AGPLv3 do not do that by default and
it is very easy for Debian users to accidentally violate the license terms,
e.g. when installing a package of a AGPLv3 web application on a publicly
accessible webserver.

An example that recently came to my attention is Debian's owncloud package,
there seems to be no configuration option to easily add a link to all pages, so
in order to comply with the AGPLv3 I guess I would have to create my own theme
that displays a link to the sources of the Debian package (probably hosting
them on my own server) and to the sources of the theme itself. I think it might
be surprising to most users that they cannot just install a distribution
package but have to take such tedious extra steps in order to comply with the
license and I do not think most are aware of that.

Any thoughts on that?

Lars