Re: The use of source cds.

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson) wrote:
>"Simmons-Davis" <simmonsdavis@frontier.net> wrote:
>>I would like to know exactly what purpose the source cds serve and who would
>>need to use them. I will only be using Debian for things like word
>>processing, email, the internet, etcetera and wouldn't be doing any
>>development or performing any major alterations to the debian distribution.
>>My question then is do you think that I have any need for purchasing the
>>source cds along with the main cds?
>
>Chances are you won't need them often, at least. Source can be useful
>for finding out why a package behaves in a certain way, more than just
>development and making changes; however, if you need that, you can
>always download the source code from the Debian FTP servers.

Oh, I should point out that the other half of why we distribute source
code is because the licenses on a large proportion of free software
require us to do so. It's not necessarily useful to everybody, but it's
useful to enough people to be worthwhile.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]