Trisquel LTS status
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Hello,
I wonder when is the community hoping to deliver the LTS version of Trisquel, based on Ubuntu 12.04? Last time I checked there wasn't any official release date.
Related to this question, is the development still active? Is the Trisquel Project commited to be around in the next 10 years?
I am trying to figure out if it's worth involving Fundația Ceata, a Free Software & Free Culture Activist Organization, into the promotion of Trisquel in Romanian-speaking countries.
Thank you,
Tiberiu
Trisquel versions appear to be released when it is ready. People are making the Trisquel 6.0 Toutatis.
It is worth promoting Trisquel because even if Trisquel would die 2013 it would be trivial to change the distribution to something else. No matter what distribution you chose now, you may have to upgrade it annually or bi-annually because a newer version of it is released.
Trisquel GNU/Linux is a good choise because it is 100 % Free Software and is not bothered of American software patents. Not much point in using just partially free distribution, unless you must.
Edit: Well, you don't have to upgrade annually if you chose Parabola GNU/Linux. That you would upgrade constantly :D Have to give merit to Parabola and say they are doing awesome work. The thing just is that if you have to maintain several installations you get too much work in micromanaging each of them, and there is enough micromanagement for me even in one installation.
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It is certainly worth to promote 100% Free operating systems. But I want to start a Trisquel Romanian community and this involves registering the domain name trisquel.ro (see this thread). Plus, in press we will promote Trisquel. It's harder to switch brands (and distributions, if we go pragmatic) when you put all your efforts in promoting one.
Parabola had its activity issues and it's somehow less reliable than Trisquel, in terms of both technical and organizational stability.
I see, hmm. Well, registering a domain does not cost much, and you will have to renew it, which costs about the same as registering a completely new domain. Of course there would be issues with old and new domain having different addresses, which could be solved by redirecting traffic to the new site.
The history has show that these kind of small projects like Trisquel are very dependant of the main developer. For example BLAG effectively died when its main developer just disappeared somewhere. Another example is Kongoni GNU/Linux, which died after the main developer called it quits. Those were examples of 100% Free Software distributions. I am sure more examples can be found from not so free small developer communities.
So, it doesn't matter what libre distribution you chose, you are taking a big risk if you count on that it will last next 10 years. That's why I might try to figure out is there a way to make the domain and organisation not attached to a certain distribution.
I am a member!
As frustrating as you can imagine it is, in Romania domain registrations require one-time only payment and you have it "for life". This means it costs ~50 euros to register a new domain and the chance to recycle one domain if it was already registered (and not used) are miminum, as you would need to reach an agreement with the owner (who most of the times is hard to find or asks lots of money for transfer).
We promote 100% Free distros on the foundation's website and in the magazine we edit, but it would be more effective to actually have a dedicated website for a specific distro. It seems to me that Trisquel is our best chance to promote one 100% Free distro.
Ok. I agree on that I would put my money also on Trisquel. Besides, what you do does help Trisquel to gain lift and rise higher. When it is high enough, it can continue to live even if the main developer would abandon it (if trademark issues are solved).
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Le 12-09-20 07:26 AM, name at domain a écrit :
I think only the main developer, Rubén Rodríguez, could answer that, but
he rarely ever comes by the forums or mailing lists to comment on the
many messages asking this very question. He doesn't comment on Trisquel
activities on his blog/microblogs either, except for some interviews to
media.
Knowing the huge community behind Debian and the efforts that project is
going through to reach "FSF-approved, 100% free distribution" status, I
prefer to start looking there for my next contributions. Such work is
being coordinated/discussed here:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-collab-discuss
Subscribe to that list to help or just follow progress.
I predict many Trisquel fans/devs will focus their efforts and use
Debian once this transition is reached. That seems only logical to me.
If I were you I would start a "LibrePlanet" community in your country,
and yes, talk about Trisquel, test it, present it, etc. - just don't
brand yourself too much into this project. As has been said here before,
it may just go away without warning and considering Debian and its
projected trajectory seems a better choice in the longer term.
To start your LibrePlanet group, check here:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Local_Teams
And you can take a look at our group (for Quebec) here:
http://libreplanet-qc.org
I encourage you to share here whatever direction you decide to take,
best of luck to you :)
Cheers,
Fabian Rodriguez
http://trisquel.magicfab.ca
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Correct me if wrong, but Debian could only reach "FSF-approved, 100% free distribution" if they would create a Distribution without any non-free software, and without repositories that would allow to easily install non-free software right ?
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Le 12-09-21 07:25 PM, name at domain a écrit :
> Correct me if wrong, but Debian could only reach "FSF-approved, 100% free distribution" if they would
create a Distribution without any non-free software,[...]
I believe Debian has already achieved that and is only pending review by
the FSF.
> and without repositories that would allow to easily install non-free software right ?
By that logic Trisquel would need to remove any and all
"add-apt-repository" and PPA additions / /etc/apt/sources.list* editing
functionality.
F.
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Trisquel does not have a "non-free section" in its repositories nor it has that kind of sentences in the "about section" of its website:
Although Debian believes in free software, there are cases where people want or need to put non-free software on their machine. Whenever possible Debian will support this. There are even a growing number of packages whose sole job is to install non-free software into a Debian system.
Trisquel does not and should not even try to control the user. The user is free to install whatever she wants on her computer. Nobody wants Trisquel's repository to become an Apple App Market with DRMs to prevent the user from installing an application absent from it! However Trisquel should not help her to install proprietary software if it wants the blessing of the FSF. That makes sense.
> I believe Debian has already achieved that and is only pending review by
> the FSF.
Old news or was there significant progress after Squeeze (and its kernel
just recommending separate blobs)?
>> and without repositories that would allow to easily install non-free
>> software right ?
>
> By that logic Trisquel would need to remove any and all
> "add-apt-repository" and PPA additions / /etc/apt/sources.list* editing
> functionality.
If we had recommended PPAs with nonfree software or provided such on the
Trisquel infrastructure (e.g. packages.trisquel.info), we would
certainly remove them.
"[A]llow to [...] install" is not a good wording here, we allow users to
run any software they want to (would it be a free system otherwise?).
This is different from recommending nonfree software like Debian or
Ubuntu does.
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Le 12-09-22 12:05 PM, Micha? Mas?owski a écrit :
>> I believe Debian has already achieved that and is only pending review by
>> the FSF.
>
> Old news or was there significant progress after Squeeze (and its kernel
> just recommending separate blobs)?
>
>>> and without repositories that would allow to easily install non-free
>>> software right ?
>>
>> By that logic Trisquel would need to remove any and all
>> "add-apt-repository" and PPA additions / /etc/apt/sources.list* editing
>> functionality.
>
> If we had recommended PPAs with nonfree software or provided such on the
> Trisquel infrastructure (e.g. packages.trisquel.info), we would
> certainly remove them.
>
> "[A]llow to [...] install" is not a good wording here, we allow users to
> run any software they want to (would it be a free system otherwise?).
> This is different from recommending nonfree software like Debian or
> Ubuntu does.
Thanks for clarifying that. I fully agree "recommending" non-free
software is not the way to go.
On the other hand, *making it difficult* to do so is another decision
that can go both ways: bring more users or alienate potential new users.
Not easy to decide, depending on your needs / situation.
F.
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Making difficult to install free software is going on the same trap as those that make us life difficult to only use non-free software (like schools). We don't need to force people, we need to educate them, and we need to work together in order to have something that people can say : "If this works and protects my freedoms at the same time, then why using the proprietary version?" And with this mentality people will stop using non-free software, and there will be more people interested in switching to only-free distribution, even big distributions like Ubuntu could become only-free-distributions, and everyone will be happy. In my opinion, if there is a place that we need to start, and this before starting teaching anything to the "outsiders" it's to change the Kernel in order to only have free-software drivers.
If Linus Torvalds shared the same ideal as we all do, then the day that the first blob was going to be introduced in the Kernel he would say "NO !", but that's not the case, even building a kernel without any blob it's difficult, they are mixed with free drivers, in other words, it's a big mess.
I understand that people that want to only use proprietary software should be able to do it, we can't force anyone to do anything or we will become worse that those we criticize so much, but making those non-free drivers a valuable piece of the kernel is not a solution because at any time, it will break.
I remembered the discussion because nVidia wanted for David Arlie to change the export function of the DMA-BUFFER (if I remember right) in order to integrate their proprietary driver with it, and David said no. And this is why now nVidia had to change its plans and only free-software drivers are supporting the DMA-BUFFER.
Are you aware that the kernel you describe not only exists but you are using it! All GNU/Linux distribution recommended by the FSF (Trisquel included) use Linux-libre, i.e., the Linux kernel minus the blobs.
I know that, but I also know that to archive this goal the Linux-Libre kernel maintainers had to use a script that would compile the kernel without the non-free stuff. I was talking about an option, the Linux Kernel works around a lot of useful options that can be enabled or disabled when compiling, but there is no option for this, there is no option that would allow to easily compile the normal kernel without the non-free drivers and firmwares, and this because they are mixed with the free drivers and firmwares.
We also want to distribute kernel sources without distributing nonfree
firmware and we don't want to recommend using that nonfree firmware (or
other nonfree software). There are distros that have options to install
only free software and to deblob the kernel when extracting its source,
they aren't recommended by the FSF for these reasons.
I am a member!
Working together is a keyword here to success (that is freedom). I think we're getting there too. It's not just the free software world which is doing a better job at it. We're interacting with lots of different organizations, projects, and companies. Not to mention the community.
So there is no specific release date for Trisquel 6.0 Toutatis LTS? If im correct isnt the current version 5.5 supported until a year from its release?
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Hey, thanks a lot for your input, Fabian!
I wasn't aware Trisquel is still mostly one person effort. If he doesn't stay in contact with the community, who is in contact with you, guys? I wonder. Are you here by yourself, hanging around, helping with support, promotion and translation?
I am aware of the recent development in the Debian Project towards freedom. I've just subscribed to the mailing list pointed out by you. This is one of the reasons Fundația Ceata financially supports debian.org.ro.
How many Trisquel developers are there? I imagine that Ubuntu is still different from Debian and not all of them will switch. Plus, while the Debian Project will probably move to 100% Free Software, the community will not adopt a Free Software culture over night, I imagine. They have been using the term GNU/Linux for the Linux-based GNU operating system for some time now, but the Debian Handbook (recently released) still includes lot of erroneous references to Linux as operating system (except for the first chapters). And the Free Software culture is getting even slower to local group members who act based on their own judgement, I know this for a fact.
I don't see why registering a LibrePlanet in Romania would be a good thing, providing we already have a Free Software and Free Culture Activist Foundation, called Fundația Ceata (also present on the LibrePlanet wiki). LibrePlanet doesn't refer to Free Culture too, it's only about Free Software. Plus, I oppose to globalization and "localization"; it's not practical to have a Romania, Moldova, etc local group if there are other countries and diaspora communities which are speaking Romanian. Ceata (means 'group' in Romanian and it's a recursive acronym for 'Ceata eliberează artele și tehnologiile actuale' - en. Ceata eliberates arts and modern technologies) has its own identity and a 4-year history.
Regarding the trademark, I don't think Rubén will go against a "local" group of Trisquel users at trisquel.ro. Nobody (not even Canonical, RedHat, etc) does it. It felt just right to ask for permission. We will take an independent decision on the Ceata administration mailing list.
Thanks once again, Fabian!
Tiberiu
Quidam is difficult, but not impossible to reach. You can contact him about development via the development mailing list. The other way to get in contact with him is via the #trisquel IRC chat channel on freenode. However, he does work a normal job because the project alone does not bring in enough money to pay for him to work on it full time.
Many of us though are supporters and do what we can. We try to assist users when they have technical problems and things like that.
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Le 12-09-20 11:19 AM, name at domain a écrit :
> Hey, thanks a lot for your input, Fabian!
>
> I wasn't aware Trisquel is still mostly one person effort. If he
doesn't stay in contact with the community, who is in contact with you,
guys? I wonder. Are you here by yourself, hanging around, helping with
support, promotion and translation?
There is *lots* of activity here, but as the list name implies, it's
users, not devs. The wall seems tall between both types.
I personally don't need much help or at least very often, as I
understand Trisquel is based off Ubuntu and inherits its bugs too. As
such, I know some bugs won't be fixed for 5.5 at all, and won't for 6.0
either if they aren't in Ubuntu. When/if I have bugs, I mostly report
them in Ubuntu knowing they will be fixed in Trisquel at the next
release. Regarding promotion I focus on showing people that a 100%
distribution is functional and can also be very helpful when testing
hardware.
> I am aware of the recent development in the Debian Project towards freedom. I've just subscribed
to the mailing list pointed out by you. This is one of the reasons
Fundația Ceata financially supports debian.org.ro.
>
> How many Trisquel developers are there? I imagine that Ubuntu is still
different from Debian and not all of them will switch. Plus, while the
Debian Project will probably move to 100% Free Software, the community
will not adopt a Free Software culture over night, I imagine. They have
been using the term GNU/Linux for the Linux-based GNU operating system
for some time now, but the Debian Handbook (recently released) still
includes lot of erroneous references to Linux as operating system
(except for the first chapters). And the Free Software culture is
getting even slower to local group members who act based on their own
judgement, I know this for a fact.
The community changes, and becomes what their users are over time. It
depends upon us, users, to influence such changes.
The book is freely licensed so nothing is stopping anyone to make such
corrections either as a contribution or as a fork of it.
Regarding free software culture, I think the LibrePlanet structure is
great to organize advocacy locally. Take a good look at the links I
provided.
>
> I don't see why registering a LibrePlanet in Romania would be a good
thing, providing we already have a Free Software and Free Culture
Activist Foundation, called Fundația Ceata (also present on the
LibrePlanet wiki). LibrePlanet doesn't refer to Free Culture too, it's
only about Free Software. Plus, I oppose to globalization and
"localization"; it's not practical to have a Romania, Moldova, etc local
group if there are other countries and diaspora communities which are
speaking Romanian. Ceata (means 'group' in Romanian and it's a recursive
acronym for 'Ceata eliberează artele și tehnologiile actuale' - en.
Ceata eliberates arts and modern technologies) has its own identity and
a 4-year history.
If your group is already in the LibrePlanet wiki, that's very much what
I was referring to! Very nice. What is the uRL? The idea is to have a
global, recognizable structure where people looking for you will find
you immediately. Try searching for "Romania" at LibrePlanet.org.
LibrePlanet is really not *exclusively* about free software.
>
> Regarding the trademark, I don't think Rubén will go against a "local"
group of Trisquel users at trisquel.ro. Nobody (not even Canonical,
RedHat, etc) does it. It felt just right to ask for permission. We will
take an independent decision on the Ceata administration mailing list.
For language support, I agree it's a good idea. Whatever best suits your
needs, do it! But as I said before, focusing too much on Trisquel may
burn you in th elong term, just my opinion.
>
> Thanks once again, Fabian!
>
> Tiberiu
Cheers,
F.
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I am a member!
This is the link on LibrePlanet: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Ceata. I also provided it in my previous post. Probably it should be more linked inside the LibrePlanet wiki.
Debian GNU/Linux is legendary and would be absolutely my favorit if they would not have that social contract saying they will support non-free software. I don't want to support non-free software.
It is interesting that there is interest inside Debian to become FSF approved distribution, and that they have a mailing list for it.
What is even more interesting is that you can make a difference in Debian, at least try to. Make proposals, post on mailing lists, get a voting solution for your proposal and make the change. Debian is a great democracy.
This is very inspiring and refreshing to see that there is still people trying to make the change.
I completely agree. And means alot as somebody estimated that 50% of distros are based on Debian.
Debian already took a major step towards freedom as it purged the non-free bits from the kernel in Debian 6.0.
Yet there is much to be done.
I would expect to wait a long long time for the 6.0 release. For example, some of us have been waiting for Abrowser 15 to be released (since Firefox 15 is a few weeks old now), but the packages are currently stuck at 14: http://packages.trisquel.info/brigantia-updates/abrowser
Sadly, this is still a one man show. I know there have been posts from people saying that if we donate money to Ruben, that he can do this full time. There have also been people willing to donate their time to improve the website, but he will not let them.
Maybe it is an ego or power control thing where the founder wants your money but will not actually let those that donate help him with the project. In return, things take longer and the users of this distribution are at the mercy of the founder hoping that someday they will get a piece of candy from him.
I think I have time to wait :D
I am a member!
This is completely misleading. There are people translating and he does fix bugs and other such things that people report. To say he doesn't let people help is wrong. He has put stipulations on certain things for the good of the distributions. For instance (this is not first hand knowledge) he has let people here know that the reason he does not want to add languages is one of stability. If there aren't enough dedicated and persistent volunteers then a version of the site will get out of date. It is already hard to keep the information up to date in English. The other issue is volunteers can take up more time than they are worth. It's not to say there aren't some good people doing good work. Fabian explained how he reports bugs to Ubuntu. Those bug fixes trickle into Trisquel. If your a good volunteer and understand the system you aren't a hindrance to Rubén getting things done.
2nd he does fix bugs that relate to Trisquel. He fixed for instance the missing ar9170 free firmware for USB N adapters. Then when the next release came out he updated this to carl9170. It's one of the few issues that really relate to Trisquel and not Ubuntu. If you understand that you'll see that you can contribute.
So we do have developer-minded individual contributing as well as translators.
Also- the best way to move the project forward and guarantee it's continuation is to build a financial base behind it. Small projects fail because of one man although they also fail because those with the skills run out of tme in there life to continue. Rubén is a young although if he starts a family his free time may no longer afford him to work on Trisquel. Getting Trisquel to a point where there is enough money coming in for a full time developer would fix that. Should Rubén no longer be able to continue that financial situation could solve the issue of there being nobody to fill the position.
Money isn't everything. It can however be a major asset to keeping a project going. Particularly if things grow to a point that they are more distributed with redundancy should the worst happen. Such as if the organization is setup where there is a fall back person should a lead developer die. Then the domain would not be lost and the development could continue more easily.
I have time to wait as well seeing as this is the only free-software version of gnu/linux out of the bunch that I really like.
First of all I'd like to say that I love Trisquel and especially the good Free Software vibes that I get from this community :). I've used every release since Taranis and the quality and look and feel has always been outstanding - good job team!
Now a few thoughts I had... I understand that people may get a little impatient. On the other hand, we all know that that the dev team is quite small (maybe there's just one dev, I have no idea). Ubuntu LTS releases are good for people who value stability (I'm in that camp). Ubuntu non-LTS releases are good for people who want the latest versions. Releasing non-LTS versions lately compared to Ubuntu kind of defeats the purpose, as some of the software contained in the distro will not be the latest version at the time of release. Considering the size of the dev team, why not concentrate on LTS releases? And let's add some Trisquel-branded ppas for the latest and greatest, so that the most popular applications are not too old? That way, the team can concentrate on just one release every two years, which shouldn't be too late compared to the Ubuntu LTS with that much time to prepare it, and in the meantime the team can maintain a few ppas for some applications. What do you all think?
A two-year release cycle would still let six months to cook a new version because the first step in building Trisquel is to mirror most of the packages of the corresponding Ubuntu version (whose development roughly starts when the previous version is released).
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There is one lead developer who does most of the development work. There are a number of other people making significant contributions though. I want to point out that there are lots of people who contribute to Trisquel indirectly. There is the entire Ubuntu community as well as paid developers by Canonical. We do a ton of testing too @ ThinkPenguin. This is more indirect although it does happen. Most of the issues though are fixed upstream in Ubuntu. We are very thorough though compared to other distributions we support.
Not a bad idea. However, even though non-LTS version comes very late when compared to Ubuntu, it still is newer than the LTS version. As the time passes the LTS version becomes more and more aged, which begin to cause issues on hardware support for example on graphics card and networking drivers.
Those problems are usually pretty easily dealt by upgrading the kernel - if you know how to do it without internet connection and graphical desktop. But for many potential users it is too much to do simply because it can be their first time they try GNU/Linux, or if they have used Ubuntu a little they still haven't got the skills to fix the problems (and they really should not have that kind of problems in the first place).
I think it is not good to lose users back to non-free operating systems just because what Trisquel offers for them is too old to be easily accessible. On the other hand I myself like that the software gets refreshed regularly. And I have noticed that non-LTS versions are pretty stable and good to use. So non-LTS versions are not bad, and there are benefits in them. I am not sure if they should be ignored.
Anyway, one way to do what you proposed could be to make subversions of LTS version, which would have never kernel and some other software upgraded by default.
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Your explaining the exact reason ThinkPenguin was founded. There exists a huge population which isn't technical enough to support themselves although with the right hardware and support it's easier than non-free operating systems. Even with the Trisquel current Trisquel LTS release I'm pretty confident that the majority of our hardware has support with a kernel upgrade. Where that isn't the case we still ship and support hardware for users who seek it. If you are on Trisquel LTS I can almost guarantee you that we have a solution to your hardware needs.
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One last thought. Trisquel is a good distribution to promote. It has an excelent track record despite some peoples desire for the latest and greatest. This is simply not the best free distribution for those users.
Trisquel is an excellent distribution on the other hand for less technical free software users and those who are not impatient. Trisquel is extremely easy to support compared to other distributions. Even on a hardware playing field for LTS releases.
Trisquel goes back all the way to 2004. It's a distribution that has grown and evolved from being something out of a school in Spain to a large dispersed world-wide user base. There are a lot of people who made that happen and encouraged it. The Free Software Foundation recommends Trisquel, Richard Stallman recommends Trisquel, amongst many others in the free software community.
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It seems to Me there are two problems :-
One - development , which has been discussed.
Two -the actual cost to Ruben of hosting his site (http://fr.archive.trisquel.info/)
If we could somehow cover the cost of this (as a minimum ) it would be a start.
I don't know what the rules are but I would be quite happy to put the range of Trisquel iso's on My Sourceforge account if it would help.
I am a member!
Hosting isn't an issue as far as I'm aware. I can't even conceive of it being one. The distribution is extremely tiny and there are (I think) more than sufficient funds to cover it. What there aren't sufficient funds for is to pay a full time developer to work on the distribution. Somebody here figured out (might have been me) what Rubén would make based on donations and Trisquel membership. It's less than minimum wage in Spain.
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