On the Topic Release Schedule

I love Trisquel as it is a great Free Software alternative to ubuntu. That's also why I loved gNewSense.

When I first entered into this world, I did so through the side door. I was first an 'open source' ubuntu 'linux' user. Later I realized the deeper history of this community; the Free Software Movement and the work of Richard Stallman.

After learning this, I decided to see myself as a Free Software GNU/Linux user. With that, I wanted a completely Free Software operating system.

gNewSense was the first one that I found. In finding it, I soon got frustrated at the fact that it was so old and out of date. It's still very old and out of date. I hear a new version is being worked on. Though, I've been hearing that for some time now.

An old operating system is an inconvenience and a risk.

A security issue, as newer programs also have newer security updates.

An inconvenience because everything is harder than it should be. New versions of software (tools and video games) depend a newer libraries to work at all. This is especially true for video games and multimedia software (especially video editing.) Compiling from source, or even installing from deb packages, becomes a nightmare on dependency hell street. Something as simple as installing a video game becomes a multiple hour, painful, task.

A lot of these libs are deeply rooted in the os. This means that each dependency will typically have a long line of dependencies itself. It's not uncommon at all to have to install five, seven, or more dep packages. All packages that I have to download from the debian or ubuntu package server; assuming all the while that (hopefully) they are still all Freedom Respecting Packages sense the old program in Trisquel was freedom respecting.

I remember, at one point, a package changed its name from the version in gNewSense. You would have thought that the sky had fallen. gNewSense didn't have a new package to tell the system to switch to the new name. I think the program was lib-cup-sys or something like that. The game didn't even need it for printing, but it needed another program that needed it. I tried to force the newer deb packages to install; but then I think that they needed a new libc6. Now I have to manually install a libc library from a deb package?!? When I tried to uninstall the old one, it uninstalled almost the entire os because almost everything in the os depended on libc. I wanted to scream. All I wanted to do was install a simple little video game. A simple, 2D video game. But, the game needed a newer versions of programs/libs that needed a new libcups, that needed a new libc6; which I couldn't figure out how to update manually.

The point is, I shouldn't have had to update anything manually because the os (in this case gNewSense) should have updated to being based off of a newer version of ubuntu.

This is the reason I switched from gNewSense to Trisquel. Trisquel, at that time, kept up to date with ubuntu releases. They were only somewhere between one to three months off. Which, honestly, wasn't that bad.

However, Trisquel has gone astray on this. Currently, in odd irony, I'm having problems installing a newest version of 2D game. (I think maybe the same game as back then.) As being one of two os distros based on ubuntu that are entirely Free Software, there are not a lot of other options. I have to think that I might be having better luck should Trisquel be newer. I know that all the newest updates to programs aren’t instant in any os distro; but at least they are updated once every six months.

Even when Version 6 comes out, it will be horrifically out of date. I'm personally able to manage on some level, as I have been running GNU/Linux systems for several years. Yet, I have to wonder how troubling this could be for people switching from ubuntu to Triquesl. Or, even harder, from windows to Trisquel. When I first went from windows to ubuntu, ease of use was helpful. That's why I chose ubuntu, at that time, over others GNU/Linux operating systems.

Trisquel 6 is based on ubuntu 12.04. This isn't even the newest version of ubuntu, it hasn't been for a long time. It was released way back in April! It's still supported, but not even the current version. By the time Trisquel 6 finally comes out, we'll all already be at least one 6month release cycle behind. If it takes four more months, we'll be two cycles behind. How close is Trisquel 6? I haven’t heard anything significant about it in a long time.

When this point has been brought up time and again, two answers arise.

1: 'We don't have enough money from contributors to get our distributions out fast enough.'
2: 'Keeping up with ubuntu really isn't a goal anymore. (I think it used to be.)' As such, what is being said here is that all of the security fixes, bug fixes, new features, and convenience of newer versions of basically all of the software are being seen as 'not really a big deal.'

Here is what I don't understand though. I might be wrong here, as I'm not a programmer. Though, from my understanding, one wouldn't really have to be for this project most of the time.

From my understanding, how I see it, Trisquel should only take a week at most to get a new version out after a new ubuntu.

All Trisquel really has to be is unbutu with different names, different logos, non-free software uninstalled, and a linux-libre kernel installed.

When a new linux kernel comes out, there is a Linux Libre Kernel in a matter of days. Same exact thing with GNU/Icecat. Every time we get a new firefox, GNU/Icecat comes out with a new version in days.

From my understanding, this is because they know what needs to changed/deleted and have formulated a script for doing just that. As such, all they need to do is download the program, run the script, and publish the Free Software version.

Why does Trisquel not do this? Why is there no simple script that can be run to change logos, change names, delete non-free programs, and install the Linux Libre Kernel?

Now, I understand that keeping the 2D option after the newest version of ubunut took extra work and extra time. But, outside of large changes like this being done, why is Trisquel taking months instead of days or a week?

From my understanding, and again I could be wrong, Trisquel is working on a lot of custom changes to the os that they do on their own; in addition to liberating ubuntu.

Does it really take months to delete packages and change logos in names? Or, could this be done quicker/made into a script?

I don't need a lot of extra changes. All I'm looking for is an os that is a liberated ubuntu that keeps up as quick as possible with ubuntu releases.

Has the priority of these extra changes been placed ahead of the priority of keeping up with ubuntu? Is keeping up with ubuntu even a priority here? If not, it's sad, as I do not then know of any Free Software liberated ubuntu that keeps up with ubuntu.

Is there a compromise that could be reached here? Maybe release a bare-bones Trisquel that is just a liberated ubuntu as soon as possible; and then work on the custom Trisquel changes and add them through the update manager as they come along over the months. Why should the entire os be put on hold for changes I may not really need/want? Am I the only one that feels this way?

It's not that the custom changes are not nice. It's just that by the time they reach us, the entire os is already obsolete by one, almost two, release cycles.