Just a friendly reminder that Trisquel 7.0 is not outdated
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Hello :)
I know most of you are really excited about Trisquel 8.0 and so happy with the new Alfa (I am really happy too).
But it seems important to me to remind you that Free Software is not about technology or progress (something I've heard Richard Stallman say several times).
Free Software is about ethics and respect freedom of the user. Free Software is more important than convenience or shiny.
Sadly a few users seem to have forgotten this, and have decided to stop using Trisquel because they seem to care more about how new and shiny the software is, more than the ethics on the software.
This is really surprising considering that Trisquel 7 is only 2 years old. "Yeah", some say, "that is really old".
Well if we consider the majority of people that have a computer, then Trisquel 7 is not outdated at all:
Windows 10 is already 1 year old, and is not the most used OS, it is windows 7 which is -wait for it- 7 years old. I know right?? Mind blow!!!. Most people on earth have a computer with a 7 years old OS!!!.
So if people who use one of the worsts operating systems can live with a 7 years old, maybe we can be a little patient and wait a few months.
FAQ:
1.- "But Ubuntu 16.04 is already a few months old".
As I already say Trisquel cares more about freedom, than it does about new technology. Remember, we are here because of freedom not progress.
I think we all know that Trisquel comes out months after the curruent LTS of Ubuntu. So no reason to be desperate.
2.- "But there are little news about Trisquel"
This does not have effect on how good or bad is Trisquel, neither on freedom, neither makes it outdated.
I agree it would be nice to have more news about development, but is not necessary either.
3.- "But the Free Software Foundation should care more about Trisquel!"
The Free Software Foundation already does as much as it can with the little resources it has.
Please stop asking the Free Software Foundation to do more and start helping it to do more.
Do not ask what Trisquel can do for you, ask what can you do for Trisquel.
Anyway most of you are really cool and already know all this, but most of us (yeah me included) have to remember this from time to time :)
Overall I absolutely agree with what you write, especially this part:
Free Software is about ethics and respect freedom of the user. Free Software is more important than convenience or shiny.
But I think you miss one point: people were asking a lot by security updates. And that is most important! Because, yes, window 7 is a lot older, but they make security updates all the time!
I don't mind using trisquel ( I love it) but I have to think twice if the system stop being secure at some point. But overall I agree with what you said.
Honestly I was never sure about what those security updates meant, every time I do sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade there is something new there. :/
So I think there are still security updates.
I am still using Trisquel 6 at one of my older PCs, and it run just fine. Probably I will be using it for some time after its EOL date. Actually I do not use Trisquel 7.0 right now :) So yeah, please do not forget about version 6 too.
I've been using Trisquel for about a year my friend :) that's why I didn't even think about Trisquel 6.0 but you just gave a better reason than I did that we can use Trisquel 7.0 a few more :)
At least the browser in 6 is very outdated. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
According to wikipedia Trisquel 6 is supposed to be supported until 2017. People need to chill. If there are Trisquel people who need the bleeding edge there is always Parabola GNU/Linux.
Trisquel 7 is at the half of his life, in fact. Trisquel is largely a subset of the Ubuntu distribution (though with Linux-Libre instead of Linux), so updates are provided from Ubuntu repositories, which for LTS versions provide five years of support.
Trisquels life is Ubuntus life minus the release delay. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is supported til April, 2019, so Trisquel 7 is too. As Trisquel 7 was released six months after Ubuntu 14.04 LTs, it gets a life of four years and a half instead of five years. As for Trisquel 8, if it was released as soon as in a pair of weeks, it would get a life of four years and five months.
You are correct, and i would just add a precision, because some people are not aware of the following point (I, for one, wasn't until recently). The five years of support only apply to the packages in Ubuntu's Main repository. There is no support from Canonical for the packages in Universe, which are present in Trisquel's repository.
You now, I never got involve in the discussion because I was very happy with trisquel 7. If I needed a newer software I was just able to compile it. Security wise, Trisquel 7 life cycle has still a long way too, so no reason to worry about that either.
It wasn't until a few days ago that I crush to a brick wall and I really needed those trsiquel 8 juicy updates for a specific program, and I felt relieve that 8 alpha have just came out. I finally knew what was all the buzz about.
I totally agree that freedom is and should always be the most important, but freedom hasn't have to be against technology or progress.
I do agree that complaining will not take us anywhere. If you really want to help free software progress and well been why not contribute in any way? Maybe financially for example.
I'm not passing this month without contributing some extra money :) . It surely felt good when the software that I needed was available when I did. And for that I'm really thankful.
And after all, isn't one of free software objectives help your friends? Thank you all.
"Sadly a few users seem to have forgotten this, and have decided to stop using Trisquel because they seem to care more about how new and shiny the software is, more than the ethics on the software."
Besides the optional non-free repository, stock Debian is free software and both the testing and unstable repositories are up to date without sacrificing freedom. Its just that Trisquel is based off of the LTS releases of Ubuntu and the Trisquel releases often come out a year or more after the LTS they are based on.
Even though some people suggests not to use them, or to be careful when using them, ppa repositories exist where one can update to the latest version of some specific applications. I currently use gnome-updates, which updates gnome up to 3.12, and libreoffice 5.2 ppa.
It's true as well that in my main computer I've installed Debian testing just to try the new shiny features of gnome 3.20; people likes new cool stuff, hehe. There's an article about this in the latest FSF bulletin, by the way.
I've brought up Snap packages, but no one has given an answer whether they are good or bad since they come from Canonical's servers. The Trisquel team could modify the source of the Snap installer to use approved packages on their own servers, but that's asking too much. Especially when Ruben can barely get security patches into the existing Trisquel release.
Snaps could be better than PPAs but their status in Trisquel is uncertain.
It's not just "shiny" stuff. I needed newer versions of GCC and Qt for a program. But that is fine, because Parabola and Debian testing/unstable exist.
At least the browser in Debian works with languagepod101 and I can use it to order a pizza.
I care more about Dragora 3 than Trisquel8, why: It is more Unixy and does without systemd.
Don't blame the users. We are not stupid. You can not serve two masters. RMS belongs in the same rubbish bin as ESR.
The FSF supports Copyright and Capitalism, and blames us for giving up on nicely reforming it.
The future is either Socialism or Barbarism. There is no bloodless road ahead.
Just to be clear:
The main point of my post is: to remember that Trisquel is about Freedom and Ethics.
It was not to talk against any person or GNU/Linux distribution.
With all the energy put on yelling and screaming about sec updates, wouldn't it be a litte more fruitful approach to, say, port those patches from parabola? :)
Everyone talks about parabola. It is that so ahead of Trisquel? If it's free soft I think I would give it a try in one of my machines, I guess.
Seriously Parabola is that so much better than Trisquel?
Parabola is rolling release, so it's very bleeding edge. This is not necessarily a good thing, though; it means that regressions are common, so it's not a very beginner-friendly distro.
Personally, I'm very grateful for having Trisquel 7 GNU/Linux available to use (I run it on multiple machines) and for the Trisquel community, as well as the FSF and all their efforts.
I'm just a home PC multimedia hobbyist, and have to be a little selective when using the Webs (HTML5/WebM), but the operating system and related programs allow me to do all I want to.
To contrast...having to fix my sister's Windows PC or an Android phone now and then, I am reminded of how intrusive and pushy the experience on some other systems can be.
In my humble opinion, Trisquel 7 on a well configured machine with updated TLS and good browser add-ons (HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger, Self Destructing Cookies, uBlock Origin) works very well for general PC use.
Unfortunately I don't have any programming skills, but I hope that there are some users out there that do and decide to make Trisquel GNU/Linux their passion. I'd also like to see a GoFundMe or similar crowd funding page be put up to pay said skilled programmers to assist in development.
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