Sourceless files in source package (was: Minified javascript files)

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:

> Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> writes:
>
> > It seems to me that the primary objection to the presence of these
> > files without source is that they are then distributed as part of
> > Debian, in the source package. That violates our social contract.
>
> The counter-argument from affected maintainers is that we *do* have
> the source. It just happens to be in a different source package. We
> even know that, because when we build the binary package we use the
> version of the Javascript library derived from that other source
> package.

Ah, yes, for the minified Javascript libraries. I was responding to a
broader claim from Ian Jackson about files without source, from
Message-ID: <[🔎] 20535.29720.103031.195954@chiark.greenend.org.uk>:

    The DFSG is correct - sourceless minified js files, GFDL docs with
    invariant sections, gimp-generated pixmaps without the original gimp
    source, etc., are all Not Free Software.

and the subject field had not yet changed to match. My apologies, I've
fixed that here.

> There is therefore no *actual* violation of the social contract here,
> just an inadequacy of bookkeeping.

In the case of files where the source is in another source package, yes.

-- 
 \      “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than |
  `\  it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” —George Bernard Shaw |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney