Comment by ranger_danger
10 days ago
I understand you prefer to be able to browse the code online, and that does seem to be largely the norm with most projects, but from a technical/legal perspective, my understanding is that the only actual requirement is that source code is provided if requested, they don't even have to post it anywhere on the Internet in advance. It could just have been emailed to you or something. But people usually put a link up somewhere just to make it easier.
Yeah, open source never meant you must provide an online repository in perpetuity for everyone.
It means you can get the code if you want it. If you have to pay for postage so someone can send you a floppy with the source code, it's still open source. It's open to you.
More importantly it means once you have the code you can then give it to others both with and without modifications.