Trisquel and Ubuntu releases
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I was wondering why Trisquel is always one release behind Ubuntu? Ubuntu is about to release the 12.10 version and Trisquel hasn't even released the version correspondent to 12.04.
To me it doesn't seem to be lack of development, but instead it seems to be planned this way, but maybe i'm wrong.
Does anyone know anything?
If I recall correctly, quidam considers a just released Ubuntu not
stable enough for Trisquel to be based on it, there are bugs fixed after
the release, so he waits several months before starting the development
of a next Trisquel release. I don't know Ubuntu development so I cannot
verify this assumption and I might misremember it.
The development of a new version starts as soon as the Ubuntu base is released... and then it takes time to cook Trisquel (I guess the move to GNOME 3 complicates the process).
Does anyone know when quidam expects Trisquel 6.0 to be ready?
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I don't know what Rubén's reasons are although having experience in this area I can tell you why I'd plan for a release 6 months after the release of the base distribution. For one I wouldn't have to worry about bugs unrelated to the changes I've made. A stable distribution means I don't have to fiddle around with unrelated bugs. Rubén doesn't want to have to fix bugs upstream that are going to be fixed anyway should he simply wait for a final release to start working on it. Two is it wouldn't get in the way of my income (Rubén's got another job). If I'm busy working on a project for my job and the deadline comes out to be the same time of Ubuntu's planned release I'd not have the time to work on Trisquel. However if I know I have an insane amount of time (a 6 month window) to get a distribution out then it doesn't matter if I work on it this weekend or a few weekends from now. I could wait until I had the time to work on it.
If anybody isn't a member please consider becoming one:
http://trisquel.info/en/member
I'd suggest contributing as much as you can reasonably afford. $10 USD / 8 EUROS a month is about what the average user of a proprietary system spends on licensing a month. This only takes into account word processing, anti-virus, and OS licensing costs. It doesn't take into account virus removals and other costs.
There are also items in the gift store which Trisquel gets a percentage on (unsure how much):
https://trisquel.info/en/store
And computers, accessories, and various other merchandise @ ThinkPenguin that Trisquel receives 25% of the profits on:
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
If we can generate enough for Rubén he could work on Trisquel full time. He has stated he would like to.
Ruben should should start development the next version of Trisquel when the Ubuntu release he is basing it on is in the beta stages. Sure there will be bugs in the Ubuntu code, but at least he can get a headstart. I know the Linux Mint project is more supported, but they make sure to have a.release within a month of the Ubuntu release.
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I'm in communications with the lead developer of Linux Mint project. If my memory serves me correctly he told me the project has four full time paid developers and lots of contributors. One of the full time developers works full time just on the Cinnamon desktop environment. In comparison Trisquel has one part time developer. Comparing the two is unreasonable. Unless you would like to start contributing it'll continue to be released 6 months after Ubuntu. Now if you want to compare this to Ubuntu we are talking about an organization that is at least 50-150x the size of the Linux Mint project.
You can't possibly expect one man working part time to have a release out a month after Ubuntu. And I apologize to anybody contributing. I don't mean to diminish your efforts. Rubén is not the only one working on Trisquel. However he is a huge part of it.
It'd be great if we could have four full time paid developers. How does Linux Mint bring in the money to pay them?
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Well,
Trisquel needs a public relations persons for starters. Every time there is a release it needs to be shown off. This would build interest in the distribution. Linux Mint does a good job of this. Right now Trisquel doesn't get much press at release time.
Linux Mint has relationships with various other commercial entities:
They have three types: partners, donors, and sponsors
Trisquel already has a donors program. These are one time donations (although they indicate when people have donated multiple times).
This month's donations so far: 68 donations, $1722.4 USD.
Then they have a sponsors program. This program is like Trisquel's associate members program. This portion of the site is currently not working for Linux Mint so I'm unsure how much it is bringing in at the moment. However I know it is significant. The top 4-5 sponsors are contributing as much as $10,000 USD a month. That alone is enough for two paid full time developers.
Theen they have partners. These are companies that donate servers, bandwidth, and similar services. As well as financing such as generating revenue through programs such as search engines (duckduckgo). Then there are vendors which contribute back a portion of the sales for each CD sold. We actually offer this for Trisquel @ ThinkPenguin.com so there already something available although it isn't advertised on the download page.
There is one last thing they have and this is advertisements. I believe this is through Google.
They also have a partnership with one company for a media center.
Trisquel also has similar types of partnerships. ThinkPenguin for instance contributes back a percentage of the profits.
To say Trisquel is far behind Linux Mint would be a bit of an understatement. It needs more free publicity though. Hiring a public relations person might not be a bad move in terms of the return on the investment.
Sorry but comparing the two can actually be fair. Linux Mint develops many more things than Trisquel, that's why they need more developers and more support. They even have their own applications and now their own Desktop Environment (Cinnamon), besides they support about 5 flavours of Linux Mint.
I don't mean to be rude, but it's really hard for me to donate to a project where there seems to be lesser and lesser effort into bringing releases earlier. According to Distrowatch, in earlier years, by now, Trisquel had already released the stable version correspondent to Ubuntu's 04 release, whereas today we don't even have a beta, not even a message explaining why this is happening. And this is really weird because supposedly now Trisquel has more support and more donations than before, so the release cycle should at least be the same.
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This is likely because he had more time in the early years to work on these releases. He's not going to have that time again. Unlike early on there were probably other people contributing to his existence (government) and parents.
Now he's got to work and the releases are less timely. However the problem goes back to the lack of contributions. He's still contributing the same amount. Most people here on the other hand who are complaining aren't contributing anything.
Aren't donations a contribution? Because i'm seeing lots of donations being made to Trisquel since the donation system has started. Plus Trisquel has also other sources of income like the gift shop and so on, but the donations alone should be sufficient to see an improvement in the release times and not a regression.
The donations are not sufficient at all. They amount to about 200€/month. For a better understanding of Trisquel funds, please read this message and the subsequent ones.
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Like Magic Banana said the amount of funds are insufficient at this point to make a difference in the timeliness of the releases. Until there are sufficient funds for Rubén Rodríguez to work on it full time I don't think it is unreasonable that the release time be significant in comparison to other distributions.
I've been working on a distribution in the last couple days. Well- I've been working on a distribution for 10 years. Mostly refining and implementing concepts than actually releasing a finished product. And this is for a particular audience- unlike Trisquel. The point is that I have a good idea what it takes to make it happen.
What I would probably do in Rubén's situation is release a version based on Ubuntu's long term support release. Then I would not bother releasing a new version every six months. I would only release updates to critical components. Packages like hplip (printers), firefox, kernels, etc.
All of this means time to get things stable, better polished, and working consistently.
Even with the resources that Canonical has I'm not convinced that this is the best approach for the long haul. Hitting the masses I think is more important than satisfying the need of a few technical users who are just playing around anyway.
I'm not saying every person who wants the STS releases is playing around. As long as the LTS releases had better hardware support and updates for a few critical packages though the STS releases would be fine for those doing real work. You would see better hardware support, more stability, and more polished releases. At least that is the idea. From the work I've done with users, development, and hardware support I'm pretty confident in this view.
That could actually work indeed. A little bit like the Debian system, something that releases only from LTS to LTS, but updates important packages when necessary to solve problems. That way people don't have to be worried about updates every 6Months and Rubén will not have to "hurry" on the release of a new Ubuntu-STS-Based-Distro.
As far as I understand, the development of a new version of Trisquel only starts when the related Ubuntu version is released: focusing on LTS would not bring it earlier. As for backports, I believe the only ones Trisquel have are coming from Ubuntu. Trisquel does not have the manpower to maintain more backports.
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I believe that is correct. The development starts after the release of an Ubuntu.,
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The only thing that will bring it out earlier is if there is enough money to pay a full time developer. Otherwise whoever is working on it is going to have other obligations which come before.,
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The benefit to not having short term releases of Trisquel would mainly be less work for Rubén Rodríguez.,
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I'd rather see a few packages get backported and tested thoroughly than a new release every 6 months. Change is difficult for the majority and a 3 year release cycles gives people the opportunity to learn the system. Physical printed books can be released for instance and better documentation will spring up.,
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Are there any packages backported in Ubuntu/Trisquel? I can only think of maybe one example. That would be Firefox. The other might be ar9170 firmware for Trisquel 4.0.1 a few releases back. Rubén Rodríguez did the ar9170. I guess he does firefox too as it isn't the same as the one Ubuntu uses.
I personaly prefer stability. So, one version each time an Ubuntu LTS is released would satisfy me. And, as you suggest it, Chris, time could be used to have better documentation or to cencentrate on the promotion of Trisquel.
But this is a personal point of view. The point is what would the whole community think? Would some people quit Trisquel because of it? Wouls some else begin using Trisquel?
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Maybe Trisquel should come out after the first upgrade release of each
Ubuntu LTS, as has happened with this one coming after 12.04.1? Maybe
work should begin soon after the first release of said Ubuntu, e. g.
12.04? By this plan, the next Trisquel release would be 18 months after
this one, with both getting support for 5 years? This seems far more
managible than rushing something every 6 months, ready or not. No
matter what we decide, someone will be unhappy. :)
Cheers,
Dave
On 10/22/2012 03:06 PM, name at domain wrote:
> I personaly prefer stability. So, one version each time an Ubuntu LTS is
> released would satisfy me. And, as you suggest it, Chris, time could be
> used to have better documentation or to cencentrate on the promotion of
> Trisquel.
> But this is a personal point of view. The point is what would the whole
> community think? Would some people quit Trisquel because of it? Wouls
> some else begin using Trisquel?
I mostly agree with this to be honest... I would even think a second time about switching from Parabola to Trisquel if this happens, because if I love the "always update" side of Parabola I mostly love the stability of Debian (yes Debian no Ubuntu for the most cases). And if Trisquel could be in the middle, something based on Ubuntu, but with some different packages and only an LTS version supported for 5 years, that could solve almost all the current problems :D
Ruben will have more time to optimize and organize this awesome distribution, and bugs could be corrected faster and in a better way ! Maybe if a lot of people agree with this we could ask directly to Ruben what he thinks about this no ?
PS: I know that this hasn't anything to do with the post but, I just wanted to know, that I am very sorry for my poor English writing :s... I try hard but I am better at Portugues (native) and French (almost native) languages :S... Sorry once again if sometimes it is hard to read what I wrote.
> PS: I know that this hasn't anything to do with the post but, I just wanted to know, that I am very sorry for my poor English writing :s...
Your English is fine! I don't have any trouble understanding you at all.
Thank you :D
As far as I understand those minor versions only aim at avoiding an update after installing the system (and at avoiding a useless waste of bandwidth for Canonical), i.e., you obtain the exact same system if you use the original ISO and 'sudo apt-get update'. If I am right, there is no point to wait for those minor versions (when Trisquel releases an ISO, it already include the latest versions available in the related Ubuntu repository).
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I'm pretty sure this is correct. The whole point is not to break things. If you do anything more you risk introducing problems.
I'd definitely do a distribution based of Ubuntu or Debian and then update select packages. That does risk breaking things although the documentation would remain largely unchanged.
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Le 12-10-22 09:17 PM, name at domain a écrit :
> As far as I understand those minor versions only aim at avoiding an update after installing the
system (and at avoiding a useless waste of bandwidth for Canonical),
i.e., you obtain the exact same system if you use the original ISO and
'sudo apt-get update'. If I am right, there is no point to wait for
those minor versions (when Trisquel releases an ISO, it already include
the latest versions available in the related Ubuntu repository).
The point is for "STS" versions there are no further or very few,
exceptional feature updates. Most updates are security-only.
On an LTS there are a few more updates, which makes it that much more
worthy to focus on getting an Ubuntu-LTS-based Trisquel out than any
other releases.
F.
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Well whatever is done to fork Trisquel off of Ubuntu needs to continue. Going back for years, I have always found Ubuntu to be a bug-ridden, unstable mess, which is why no Ubuntu install ever lasted more than 24 hours on my machine. Trisquel isn't like that. It is as if Trisquel stabilizes Ubuntu somehow in the fork. So whatever Trisquel is doing, needs to continue.
I restarted using Trisquel Gnu/Linux as my main Distribution (after a long trip (may this be the word I wanted to use xD) in the lands of Parabola Gnu/Linux) and I have to admit... I really love this distribution :D Maybe because of the Design, maybe because of the All Free Software, Maybe because of this awesome community (I will never be tired to say this really) ! Or maybe because it is the Ubuntu that I've always loved to have (and that I used to have before Unity, and this even knowing that I quite like Unity to be honest).
Just wanted to say this.
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