A sharp result on global small solutions to the Cauchy problem $$u_t = \Delta u + f\left( {u,Du,D^2 u,u_t } \right)\left( {t > 0} \right),u\left( 0 \right) = u_0 $$
We show that the discrete Kadomtsev--Petviashvili (KP) equation with sources obtained in \cite{Hu2006} by the "source generalization" method can be incorporated into the squared eigenfunctions symmetry extension procedure. Moreover, using the known correspondence between Darboux-type transformations and additional independent variables, we demonstrate that the equation with sources can be derived from Hirota's discrete KP equations but in a space of bigger dimension. In this way we uncover the origin of the source terms as coming from multidimensional consistency of the Hirota system itself.