With all due respect, have you tried generating a BOM out of the "source" files? You can't because a huge portion of the parts don't contain the mfg. part numbers.
If they had provided all this info in the eagle files, then yes - it would be a valid file.
They conveniently left it out. I guarantee somewhere in the company they have a complete BOM for the arduino, but they certainly don't publish it on their website.
The only BOMs I've found have been through reverse engineer community efforts.
It's not. Take for example the pushbutton switch on the arduino uno - it has a very specific one-of-a-kind footprint. So if you don't have the mfg part number, there's no way to populate the PCB. You're literally going to have to re-layout the board and choose your own. And what if the debouncing of the new switch is different than the original and doesn't work with their firmware.
Providing the mfg for ALL the part numbers is critical in hardware design. In a lot of cases, where hardware is mission critical (like space or medial), if one single mfg part number changes or the source manufacuture changes, the entire system needs to be requalified/tested because of the larger ramifications.
If you start willy-nilly grabbing parts off the shelf that might work, you're going to eventually get burned.
My request is simple - if you're publishing an open source projet, please publish the offical BOM that the platform was validated under, and put the BOM in source control should a part become discontinued and need a replacement. This is standard for any hardware product.
Edit: The switch mfg part number is actually a real problem. See this person who tried to reverse engineer the part number. Notice the ??? in the mfg? Google doesn't return much with that part number. If you can find the actual mfg datasheet for that part number I'd love to know. I have no idea where to order that switch.
If they had provided all this info in the eagle files, then yes - it would be a valid file.
They conveniently left it out. I guarantee somewhere in the company they have a complete BOM for the arduino, but they certainly don't publish it on their website.
The only BOMs I've found have been through reverse engineer community efforts.