Reading this post on Debian’s git transition and all this stuff is exactly what I had been searching for and couldn’t figure out a year or so ago omg https://diziet.dreamwidth.org/20436.html
Like holy fuck this is a game changer. Exactly what I’ve been wanting!!
> Downstreams and users can obtain the source code of any Debian package in git form. (dgit clone, 2013). They can then work with this source code completely in git, including building binaries, merging new versions, even automatically (eg Raspbian, 2016), and all without having to deal with source packages at all (eg Wikimedia 2025).
@hailey Yeah, but... it means Debian distributors are no longer complying with at least the GNU family of licenses, since the *reason* for source archives was so that mirrors and other distributors would automatically be in compliance by pulling and shipping the Debian package repositories.
It takes some creative interpretation of the "offer" clause to make this work, and frankly it wouldn't work if the distributor doesn't even know where the source code comes from.
@neal you should read the article, the source archive isn’t going away. plus I’m not really sure how the GPL family of licenses prohibits source distribution via git?
@hailey The goal is to get rid of automatically distributed source archives (that's the whole point of the change, eliminating dsc artifacts).
The GNU licenses don't prohibit it, but every distribution of binaries needs the corresponding sources to go along with it under those licenses. RPM and DPKG, when they were created, made source bundle formats to comply with this (SRPM and DSC, respectively). Without this component, it's a lot harder to do this properly.
@neal if the source is distributed by git it’s even better for software freedom because you don’t just get a point-in-time source dump (in fact this is a common malicious compliance tactic, see Apple’s GPL source dumps) but a full history where you can track changes over time
