Bug#129629: Not really distributing sources

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> The default contents of /etc/apt/sources.list
> have the source package locations commented out.
> A consequence of this is that Debian is not,
> practically speaking, providing equivalent access
> to copy the sources along with the binaries
> as required by some licenses including the GNU GPL.

I wonder exactly which default contents you're referring to? It is true
that the sources.list shipped with apt has the sources commented out.
However, on all new Debian installs, this sources.list is replaced with
a more handcrafted one, generated by the apt-setup program in the
base-config package. apt-setup automatically enables deb-src lines to go
with each deb line it adds to the sources.list file, when it can (it
cannot if the user chooses to give it only a binary-only cd, or perhaps
if they told it to use a mirror that was somehow missing the source
packages). If you've experienced some other behavior I'd certianly like
to know about it.

> The fix is simple: uncomment those lines, and make sure they are
> correct.

Anyway I certianly see no reason why Jason shouldn't uncomment those
lines in apt's examples sources.list.

-- 
see shy jo