[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#752223: [biomaj-watcher] Some sources are not included in your package

[Bastien ROUCARIES]

Package: src:biomaj-watcher
Version: 1.2.1-1
user: debian-qa at lists.debian.org
usertags: source-is-missing
severity: serious
X-Debbugs-CC: ftpmaster at debian.org

Hi,

Your package seems to include some files that lack sources
in prefered forms of modification:

usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/bmajwatcher/bmajwatcher.nocache.js
(may be included elsewhere)
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/resources/chart/open-flash-chart.swf
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/resources/flash/swfobject.js
(may be packaed under debian)
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/bmajwatcher/sc/modules/ISC_DSBrowser.js
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/bmajwatcher/sc/modules/ISC_EBay.js
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/bmajwatcher/sc/modules/ISC_History.js
usr/share/biomaj-watcher/src/war/bmajwatcher/sc/modules/ISC_Kapow.js
(no idea about these 4)

According to Debian Free Software Guidelines [1] (DFSG) #2:
 "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution
  in source code as well as compiled form.".

This could also constitute a license violation for some copyleft
licenses such as the GNU GPL.

In order to solve this problem, you could:
1. repack the origin tarball adding the missing source to it.
2  add the source files to "debian/missing-sources" directory

Both way satisfies the requirement that we ship the source. Second option
might be preferable due to the following reasons [2]:
 - Upstream can do it too and you could even supply a patch to them,
thus full filling our social contract [3], see particularly §2.
 - If source and non-source are in different locations, ftpmasters may
   miss the source and (needlessly) reject the package.
 - The source isn't duplicated in every .diff.gz/.debian.tar.* (though
   this only really matters for larger sources).

You could also ask debian-qa at lists.debian.org or #debian-qa for more
guidance.

[1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract.en.html#guidelines
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=736873#8
[3] https://www.debian.org/social_contract