I'm leaving Trisquel
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Thank you very much! I believe it is easier for newbies to copy-paste to the terminal and execute a single command line (rather than copy-paste to a file, make it executable and execute it). That is why I kept the single line (notice also that your 'print ""' has one supernumerary level of indentation). I actually applied the fix in a different way: 'tr -d ,' deletes all commas right after https://trisquel.info/en/donate is downloaded. If I can avoid 'gensub', I usually do so (I always have to go back to the documentation for 'gensub' and the likes)...
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/financial-information was updated accordingly. The sums now match those of Ignacio.Agullo.
One thing that was somehow surprising was seeing the wide one-liner in the donation page that represents its history. But that's OK since one can use less to view it instead of gedit.
I thought the site used Semantic MediaWiki. But I guess that keeping the current approach is also a good thing.
I did some quick search and it's possible to use some Semantic MediaWiki features to sum the donation amounts (of course it might also have drawbacks), see this:
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Sum_format
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Custom_units
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Type_Quantity
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Currency
https://github.com/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki/issues/1529
So the problem is actually rather the way the fsf sets its priorities.
In my opinion they *should* use their money for something important as one of the very few truly free distributions out there.
Nobody can blame Ruben - I'm rather surprised that he is able to maintain the project at all if he has to do it in his spare time.
There is clearly something wrong here.
Can the FSF afford to? They also have limited resources and much that needs doing on their own. Have you looked at their financial statements? They're very lean. It's amazing that they accomplish as much as they do. It's a testament to the quality and dedication of the people they hire.
What is more important for free software than having a 100% free system?
If the fsf spends money on anything, shouldn't the trisquel project be on the very top of the list, or at least far up there`?
Teaching about free software and campaigning for various issues is also important. And how do the other FSF-endorsed distros feel over that if the FSF were to say "we'll hire someone to work on Trisquel but sorry Parabola and Guix you lose! Suckers!!! LOL..." I think they'd feel like a second-class distro: Trisquel is worthy of this but not them. I recall one of RMS's main points with their endorsed distros was to treat them all equally, even listing them in alphabetical order to avoid any indication of preference. But anyway, you didn't really address the money part. So: Make a large donation to the FSF. Enough for them to hire someone to work only on Trisquel full time for years and years. You'll have to sort out how to do that while still treating them equally with RMS (if that's even possible to do!!!). Go write him at name at domain and hash out the details.
Teaching about freedom is not much use if there is no free OS that people can actually install.
It is sensible to support the distro with the biggest userbase, which trisquel is.
Some people of other distros might be offended by that or feel kinda down, but that is a minor issue compared to the fact that one of the few usable free distros is going down the hill because of an overstrained lead developer.
The fsf receives every year a substantial amount of money as an income.
I wish they would use it on something like trisquel instead of those campaigns which often have a quite limited impact.
"The fsf receives every year a substantial amount of money as an income."
Ha! I don't know which FSF you're looking at. $450,000 (okay, they ended at $461,000 at their last fundraiser)? For a staff of 12 people? That works out to about $38,416 per person. That's not a lot in the U.S. And it's even less if you add more people like you want to do. And that doesn't include office expenses like rent and whatever other costs there may be to keep the office going. Or running the LibrePlanet conference. I understand that MIT donates the space but it can't all be free. And other operational expenses throughout the year.
If you really think the FSF has the ability to add more staff or that they should change directions and work on different things than they do currently you should write to them and say just that - http://www.fsf.org/about/contact/ - because arguing about this on a website does nothing.
"Teaching about freedom is not much use if there is no free OS that people can actually install."
I would like to underscore this point. It is basic.
I'm a layman; a novice GNU/linux user who supports the premise of libre OS.
How can I reach out to friends to tell them about Trisquel, and encourage them to try it when the system isn't "user friendly" enough to use?
I'm able to persevere with Trisquel because 1. I have the time to troubleshoot the basics and 2. because of the great support and patience of members of the forum. If I didn't have either I could not consider Trisquel, and for now I have to direct novices towards Ubuntu as alternative to Mac or Windows because it "just works".
-Zem
P.S. and yes: Thank you for this great OS and your tireless work.
So basically the FSF would rather spend its resources in being political than give a helping hand to a distribution that follows their ideals.
Shouldn't the deployment and continued growth of free software that you can run freely on your server carry some weight?
Especially in modern times with "cloud" servers that only deploy operating systems like Ubuntu with their restricted and multiverse repos enabled by default.
I'd love to see Trisquel in a Docker image (Docker is free software) or as an option on something like Digital Ocean or Rackspace.
You forgot that the FSF also has to spend a ton of money on union dues. (Rough estimate per worker: https://i.imgur.com/WXj2Hzz.jpg )
Today I could dedicate most of my day to Trisquel and fixed some problems with the repo management that were preventing updates to be pushed. I also started to work on fixing the bugs in the Firefox > Abrowser package helper that are preventing new versions of the browser to be published.
-
Additionally, an important tasks that needs to be done is to set up an alert system that checks for all automated services to work as expected.
Sounds great, thanks for all this.
100% free, and in the near future 100% reliable/secure, that's all I need.
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to this thread and also for taking the time to fix the update scripts again. Well done! Maybe, in this context, I should change the title of this thread to something less intimidating in order to continue to enable a fruitful base for discussions. Does anyone know how I could do that?
Even though Ruben has now taken the time to enable updates again, I still don't consider this to be a permanent solution. The time will come when life will throw stones at you again and we'll end up without a maintained distribution again. Wouldn't it be a much better solution to distribute all the workload on different shoulders? That would take a lot of work and responsibility from you, Ruben. Any thoughts how this could be achieved?
This makes sense. I mean, the alert system should at least not let such lack of updates go unnoticed for too long, but if there's only one maintainer who can intervene, that's indeed a problem.
That is, IF that's how it is right now (I have no idea).
haha crazy this thread to turned into fixing a bug, I skipped over the FSF philosophy part. but other then that great thread!
I left Trisquel myself a while ago for debian stable. The reason was mostly for steam gaming. I'm not a 100% free only guy sorry. But Trisquel is still good for 2019 I don't see why leave if people are? It still gets the security updates, just a day late. So i would always check the ubuntu security page and if its serious not use trisquel for a day if anything.
But the reason I like trisquel so much is because it was the only iso where I could use Grsec on full security with the linux-libre kernel and it would complain about nothing. Loved that trisquel was using gnome flashback desktop, everything about it. To the fact that even the network logs were noise free unlike anything I've ever used.
But I as well never felt comfortable about Ruben being non existent, or most of the community members not even using trisquel themselves, Including the two devs like Ruben who use debian. Community members trying to constantly change the project to something else. like base it it on debian change the DE and the login manger and so on, etc..... So is everyone moving to debian not a surprise to me, or Ruben disappearing, no of course not, because it was encouraged.
I would stay with ubuntu imo...the whole point about this project imo is to educate newbies and de-spy ubuntu.
if you say so.
There are times when Abrowser doesn't receive security updates for months.
thats crazy.
Right now, I think Abrowser is getting updates. But IceCat is based on the outdated and unsupported Firefox 38, and hasn't received an update in 5 months. So don't use IceCat. You could probably replicate the privacy features in Abrowser with extensions and changes in about:config.
Also, if you're using Tor, I would advise to only use the Tor Browser Bundle for the maximum anonymity. Using anything else (like IceCat's built-in Tor functionality) would probably change your fingerprint. This is fine, of course, if you don't care about anonymity that much.
At least if you use Guix (no need to use the entire GuixSD), GNU IceCat
has a beta update to version 45, see:
and also .
I'm using it now, with GNU LibreJS also.
all the campain, all the teaching etc.. without an OS??? like quantumgravity told, trisquel has to be the priority....
Maybe instead of complaining to Ruben, we should complain to the Fsf.
It's not the money nor the time it's the concept that makes this allive, it's because of the tremendous importance of the concept that we are here discussing this.
Can we imagine a world without freedom???
The concept is very very important!
But i'll say no more because I practically just arrive to Trisquel. But I love freedom. This is my small contribution to the discussion.
I am a translator!
Hey Trisquel's community !
Perhaps it's time for our community to take it's own responsibility on the Trisquel project.
Perhaps it's time for the main developer to give the community more place in development of Trisquel.
Rather than take more people from FSF or another organization, we should build an organization only for Trisquel project.
Hey boys and girls, what are your skill ? What can you do to improve this project ? I think we must organize ourself to develop this project. I thinks Trisquel project need to be more decentralized !
Cheers to that!
I am unfortunately very time-poor and absolutely useless at software development and drawing and so on, but I'm happy to offer my services for anything that would need to be done.
Hi everyone. I'm really new to Trisquel and to Free Software way of life, but during these two weeks with Trisquel Mini I really felt that sense of freedom pople on the internet were talking about. I really like this distribution not just because it has 100% free software, but also because it fits damn well on my old Asus eeePC 701 which I use when I'm not home (= always). I'm not a developer, so I won't be useful if Ruben and the others decide to accept development help from the community, but I think that you may need someone who reports bugs coming from the latest releases!
I sincerely hope this project will not get abandoned with time, I tried about 100 distros on my netbook (for days, not just 2 mins) and, trust me, no one is even near to Trisquel for freedom, performance and beauty!
Have a nice day! And don't root while drunk! :)
in the distrowatch is in 89 position, how come the main fsf distro surpassed by some unknow distros???
I am a member!
Most gnu/linux users are more interested in getting their hardware to work than in using a totally libre distro.I was like that for the first few years as a gnu/linux user, but now the kernel is so good at supporting hardware, I have not problem. Libre is better.
This was also true for me 2001 - 2008 before I knew about the FSF and it's work and didn't have freedom compatible machine.
So I began to work my way to freedom. I went Trisquel + non-free kernel for a year, because GPU and WiFi. I then bought a free WiFi, and then finally few years later could ignore the GPU firmware. I'm still not RYF'able, but some day I will.
I think it's better to support and use a fully free distro base with those non-free that one absolutely has to have, than to go with a proudly non-free distro.
the goal for trisquel is to get the first position
now it is in 89, something has to be done....
89 mean nobody use trisquel, even the first isn't much considering the gap between windows and mac os vs gnu/linux
and for what I can read, here in the forum very few people use trisquel...we talking about something almost nobody use....
and the reason is that trisquel isn't mantained like a fsf main distro has to be
at this point i'm asking about fsf health status...
young skilled fellow, rise up trisquel
yes getting all the forum posters here to use it is the first step haha.
Unfortunately I have to say all of you (except Mzee) have failed to see the main *source* of the problem. The problem is not why Ruben invest less time on the project than before, the main problem is *why does Trisquel depend on one person?*
I suppose we need something like *Trisquel Users Board*.
Totally agree, we must have a Trisquel Users Board, as soon as possible...
Huge EDIT: Read the response, 10/10.
I have to agree with the original poster. This distribution peaked around 2010/2011 and hasn't been the same since. It looks worse than before (which can be fixed with MATE if they still want a classic look) and communication between Ruben and the community is at an all time low. He works for the FSF, yet cannot find time for his FSF endorsed distro.
The attitude he has of keeping us all waiting for a release needs to stop. Especially when he doesn't release any updated ISOs during the lifetime of a major release. They get horribly outdated to the point where some people cannot even install due to fixes made upstream by the Ubuntu point release ISOs being ignored by Trisquel.
Besides the curation of a few packages, what is he real difference between Ubuntu and Trisquel if someone only enables the main and universe repos, uses the Linux Libre kernel, and purges the linux-firmware package? There has been some questionable removals of free software from Trisquel like Chromium and the ZFS packages that are removed on fanboys and misinformation.
I don't blame you if you want to leave.
Rubén does still work in the project, from time to time, but he does.
He told me on IRC, and probably told here also, that he does reserve a
day to work on the project.
Besides, people tend to think that maintaining or even making a
free/libre system distribution is such an easy task such as to diminish
the work already done by asking "the real difference". When, in fact,
free/libre system distributions have, administratively speaking, not
only technical variables to care for, but also philosophical ones. Once
you read the GNU FSDG and start realizing that "I would have to do this
to 45.000 packages or so, manually???", you start to see how big the
difference is.
ZFS is free software, but the copyright holders choose a license that
complicates things. You can redistribute ZFS but only in source code
form, not compiled/built. However, one must note that ZFS was announced
to be included as a *kernel module* only near the release of Ubuntu
16.04, and Trisquel 8 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, see:
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/16/zfs-is-the-fs-for-containers-in-ubuntu-16-04/
There are some packages such as "zfs-fuse" that make ZFS available, but
they are made so as to work on *user level*, not built in combination
with the kernel, these *user level* packages allow one to use ZFS with
part of the license conflicts solved, at the expense of speed while
using it):
http://packages.trisquel.info/belenos/zfs-fuse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Linux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#Linux_FUSE
As for Chromium, it seems more like open source right now, since there's
no known free/libre system distribution that includes it, or because
there's no approved entry on the Free Software Directory, see:
http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Chromium
https://www.parabola.nu/packages/?sort=&q=chromium&maintainer=&flagged=
http://archive.gnewsense.org/gnewsense/pool/main/c/ (try looking for it
here with your browser's "search" function)
https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=chromium&fdpage=1&page_id=0 (getChromium is different from Chromium)
Also, it seems that there's a GNU FSDG issue involving Chromium:
https://labs.parabola.nu/issues/140
However, you can use Iridium instead:
That copyright file that everybody points to is automatically generated. Of course it couldn't find everything! But now if you now look at the copyright file, located at http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//main/c/chromium-browser/chromium-browser_51.0.2704.79-1_copyright and run the following command:
$ grep License: chromium-browser_51.0.2704.79-1_copyright | sort | uniq
there is nothing there with an unknown license.
Also, why is Chromium given this much scrutiny as opposed to other packages with large codebases like, say, Firefox? There are a few nonfree files or files without source code in the firefox source package. You can see a list of them in the Debian source package in the file debian/source.filter (these files are unimportant and can simply be removed, as Debian does) and I am copying the list here:
other-licenses/7zstub/firefox/7zSD.sfx
toolkit/mozapps/update/updater/macbuild/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/MainMenu.nib/keyedobjects.nib
toolkit/mozapps/update/updater/macbuild/Contents/PkgInfo
config/makedep.exe
intl/unicharutil/tools/data/case.dat
intl/unicharutil/tools/data/cmbcl.dat
intl/unicharutil/tools/data/ctype.dat
intl/unicharutil/tools/data/decomp.dat
intl/unicharutil/tools/data/num.dat
netwerk/protocol/ftp/doc/rfc959.txt
layout/doc
content/xml/tests
image/test/reftest/pngsuite-transparency
image/test/reftest/reftest.list /pngsuite-transparency/d
build/pgo/blueprint/valid.png
addon-sdk/source/examples/annotator/data/jquery-1.4.2.min.js
addon-sdk/source/examples/reddit-panel/data/jquery-1.4.4.min.js
@t3g: I don't think that Ruben is giving us some kind of "attitude" here. It's just that he seems to be a bit overwhelmed and, to be honest, I would definitely feel the same if I were the sole maintainer of such an important distribution. It's not like he let's us all wait on purpose. It's just that life keeps people busy... Furthermore, he took the time to answer and even started to fix things already. He wouldn't do that if he wouldn't care for Trisquel.
@SalmanMohammadi: Thank you for getting my point. Until recently, I had no idea how to change the way this distribution is maintained while keeping everyone happy at the same time. Maybe a "Trisquel Users Board" can be the solution. However, as it stands for now, Ruben would have to be the one initiating such a board. I don't see any way to solve this without him and I would love to see him working with the community on a more decentralized version of Trisquel. Other people's forking initiatives I've seen here in the past just have the potential to divide us even further, IMHO.
@Ruben: What do you say? Does it sound like a plan to you to establish a more decentralized approach (in whatever shape or form)?
I actually posted that prior to reading his response that was kinda lost in the replies. It as in response to your original post.
Not that it matters since every time I post, there's always someone there to downvote it and make hidden.
I missed his post the first time too. So looks like trisquel is alive and well.
Well, if you guys want more peoples work for free to Trisquel,I give you a solution !
Just find gnu/linux developers and convince them to join Trisquel developers team.
If a distribution has no code updates for 1 month it not means is dead, it means the developers have a life and other things to do, or maybe they need a vacation.
So dear users please have understanding for what Ruben and all the contributors ( with code or money donations ) give us for free.
Again, it's not only about normal updates. The default browser wasn't maintained for months, which is a huge problem for unsuspecting users. It seems it's because the automated process was a bit too strict (not a bad thing in itself), and is going to be fixed.
And it's been mentioned several times that most people here understand that it takes time and effort.
On the the theme of decentralized maintenance:
I don't know how it's currently done, and how it differs from other distros.
I know that I can participate, and communication on IRC between maintainers seems to work. I know that there are Trisquel mirrors as well.
So, like you, I don't really understand the problem here.
Care to elaborate, anyone?
Is it at the decision level that it's problematic?
Personally, I don't care, but I'd like to understand what's bothering you, and why.
I can't even convince fsf ones.... :( But actually maintaining an operating system probably only sounds easy lol. most people are just programmers or techies.
I'd definitely be down for helping out with Trisquel. I am only a beginner/ intermediate developer and new to Trisquel and GNU/Linix (since last year). Where do i ask?
In the future I would like to commit to help, but today I think I do not met the prerequisites for what i want in the future: be a developer. I am using gnu/linux about 2/3 years from now and still learning programming language ( I know fair of C, and just started with bash shell). So in this field i think i need some time to construct some foundations.
But i can do some translation work. I know spanish , Portuguese (my mother language) and english, and some french.
I am a translator!
Yes, if you can translate into another language some manual it would be cool ! Thanks you :-)
However I think English manual need major clean up and big reorganization before make new translation.
Give me one I and start tranlating to Portuguese this very week. Seriously I want to contribute!
I'll send the translation to you as i do it. when we could start?
HKR has many great and important points!
I used to participate on another GNU/Linux distro earlier, which was even smaller than Trisquel and a one-leader-project.
My participation was mainly hanging on the forum and helping people out with their issues, but I also did some packages (PKGBUILDs).
The leader was basically doing all the work, desicions and inclusions of our "incoming" pkgbuilds to the official repo. He a new family, a paywork and all. And us, a one-handful of contributors live all in different countries.
I would also love to see some sort of hierarchy or organization here, which would take some of the pressure off of Quidam's shoulders. The project is quite heavy for one man to carry. I highly appreciate Trisquel and Quidam's work and would feel sad if the project dries out. We the people need an active Libre operating system project. I say this not to dispute or compare all other important FSF/FSM issues, but to suggest they tie together. It's essential to point people to an easy migration to Free Software world.
Sure there's Debian main, but.... I don't know if that's enough.
As I don't feel myself as a skillful programmer (yet), my easiest bid would be financial support. I believe many of us could afford to budget a fixed % of our monthly surplus to donations, be it 1% or 0.5%.
Sure I could participate in translations and document cleanups as well. I speak Finnish(native), English and Esperanto.
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