Why does Trisquel take to much time to release a new version?

Disclaimer: I'm not a Trisquel dev but have looked into it somewhat and am planning to contribute soon.

First of all, stripping away the proprietary stuff isn't as easy as it may seem. One could, for example, think that Trisquel could just be based on Debian without offering Debian's nonfree and contrib repos. But there are some differences in what the Debian project considers free software and what the FSF considers free, and Trisquel tries to adhere to the FSF. This means there needs to be careful consideration as to which packages are truly free and which aren't (a popular example of this debate is chromium).

But Trisquel doesn't just strip away everything proprietary. Some packages may be modified to take specific non-free parts away, instead of having to remove the entire package. Then, Trisquel also has to do rebranding: It has its own icon theme, its logo and name that should replace any occurance of the Ubuntu logo or name, etc. Firefox is also rebranded to Abrowser and some changes are made to it.

All this is done with helper scripts (see here: https://devel.trisquel.info/trisquel/package-helpers), which need maintanence since a software package update may break a helper script so it may need to be changed.

Also, Trisquel uses completely different defaults than Ubuntu. Ubuntu 16.04 came with the Unity desktop, Trisquel comes with MATE, but it's still set up very differently than Ubuntu MATE 16.04. I think Trisquel has made very sensible design choices here and this kind of stuff takes some time.

And finally, Trisquel has a very small number of contributors, who are doing this for free in their spare time.

There is now a new column with delay information with respect to base OS in Wikipedia page of Trisquel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisquel#Release_history

> As far as I know, Trisquel just strips down proprietary software from
> an Ubuntu release.
>
> We should be able to identify and delete all proprietary software just
> by running a script.
>
> Then a new Trisquel version should be published within hours of an
> Ubuntu release.
>
> What am I missing here?

Read this,[1] and you will see that FSDG-compliance is not something
that can be done with one script. In particular, note this paragraph:

"A free system distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any
nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so. The
system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific
recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs. Nor should the
distribution refer to third-party repositories that are not committed to
only including free software; even if they only have free software
today, that may not be true tomorrow. Programs in the system should not
suggest installing nonfree plugins, documentation, and so on."

Ubuntu contains many packages which are free software, but which violate
the FSDG in one or more of the ways described in that paragraph. In
order to fix this, we need to actually modify the source code of those
packages. There can be no one-size-fits all script to fix these
packages. Each package needs its own script.[2]

We try to write the scripts in such a way that they will often work for
future versions of the packages without needing to be modified, but
which each Ubuntu release there are inevitably many scripts which need
to be updated for the new package versions. If you would like to see
the kinds of changes we have had to make for Trisquel 9, browse through
the git history here.[3]

[1] https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

[2]
https://devel.trisquel.info/trisquel/package-helpers/tree/etiona/helpers

[3] https://devel.trisquel.info/trisquel/package-helpers/commits/etiona

Scripts help tremendously, but removing all proprietary bits requires
manual human intervention. It is similar to deblobbing the kernel.

Partly Debian's DFSG is not strict enough and further works are needed to meet FSF's guidelines (as an endorsed distribution).

Partly Ubuntu has been actively incorporating non-free software to its distribution, so it's increasingly hard to purify it (to be used as the basis of Trisquel).

It is reminded that new versions are very long in coming.
I agree with that criticism.

But there are (for me) more important things than a new major version of the system:
It is unacceptable that updates, especially of important programs like LibreOffice, take endless time and that you can only get the latest versions "by crooked means".

Basically I see it as a mistake to take a major system like Ubuntu here and make a free version out of it. By this (bad) "strategy"; one has (always) problems:

1. You always have to react to new versions and cannot go through your own development cycles -> the users get annoyed, which is why no new version comes when the "template system" appears in a new version.

2. You have to start over and over again by scanning the template system to see if non-free software has "crept in" somewhere if you only want to offer real free software yourself. Thus you do the full work of building a free system every time and cannot build on existing (own) changes.

3. Stress, which at least in parts could be avoided, causes unnecessary wear and tear and the system is constantly threatened with death due to overloading the developers -> and new developers are difficult to recruit -> the system always remains in the niche and remains meaningless.

I think Trisquel is great - without a lot of frippery and well focused on "productivity" - but I won't be on Trisquel much longer if it doesn't show a clear improvement.
What use is free software to me if I don't get updates for the important main programs?

Many greetings
detlef

@strypey:

[I ask for your understanding for a perhaps bad English - this is a machine translation from German]

There are several arguments against it:

1. Only very few users are capable of intervening in the system themselves. And only a few want that. The "normal user" wants to use the system ONLY, nothing else.

2. Whoever publishes a program or a system is also responsible for its topicality. Even if I want to update my programs (manually and on my own responsibility), I cannot do that at all, because current versions are not offered by the system publisher at all. I have to go "crooked ways" to use the current versions.

3. It is a very weak and above all bad reason, the "mother system" is outdated and therefore my system cannot be up to date. Then why should I use this "child system"? Then I can use any other system -> then the system was already dead at startup and it is pointless to use it.

4. The internet and thousands of books and thousands of seminars are full of reminders to bring in updates because they are important for security. To stick to my example: LibreOffice is now not only updated for its beauty, but also includes bugfixes and security improvements. Here, too, it is a false argument that it would not always be security improvements and therefore updates would be unimportant -> a dangerous policy that causes serious damage to one's own system.

All in all:
No wonder that Trisquel (or other good systems) do not come out of the niche and do not grow old overall when argued like this. . .

Just a (very)quick side note,

For Trisquel 9 you'll be able to enable the backports repository to get LibreOffice on the Fresh edition, rather the default Ubuntu's frozen release.

Cheers!

Given that updates take time to process, isn't it possible that important security updates aren't passed through immediately because their code needs to be reviewed? Could this be regarded as a security trade-off for the freedom that Trisquel provides? If so wouldn't a default Debian install using only free sources for apt be more secure? I know these are provocative questions but I'd imagine they would receive provocative answers :)