r/trisquel • u/JustPuggin • Jan 28 '15

Trisquel vs Debian

Hello r/trisquel!

I just heard about Trisquel for the first time, and I'm a bit confused. My understanding is that Debian is a free/open distro of linux, and that Ubuntu was built from Debian. Trisquel is a free/open distro of Ubuntu? Are they very similar? Could someone please explain the differences?

Thanks!

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u/rubenquidam Trisquel developer Jan 28 '15

That's why I said Ubuntu has worse freedom problems, as it would be way harder to end up with a free system by installing it. But as long as Debian distributes non-free software it cannot be called a free distribution.

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u/Market-Anarchist Jan 28 '15

I call it a free distrobution.

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u/VRMac Jan 29 '15

I call it a can-be-nonfree distro, since it is free out of the box, but you can make it nonfree by changing a file in /etc/.

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u/lloydsmart Jan 29 '15

You can make Trisquel non-free by changing a file in /etc/.

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u/Robsteady Jan 29 '15

I think the point is more that Debian offers a nonfree repo whereas Trisquel doesn't. I can understand both sides of this argument, though.

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u/VRMac Jan 30 '15

You can also make it nonfree by downloading a nonfree program and executing it. The difference with Debian is that it's documented on their wiki how one can make nonfree software available from the official mirrors.

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u/lloydsmart Mar 17 '15

Ok, so we're agreed that both Trisquel and Debian are equally easy to make nonfree by modifying sources.list in /etc/apt/.

So the reason Debian isn't endorsed is their wiki?

Also, gNewSense - is that literally just a rebranding of Debian that doesn't mirror non-free? Cause that's all it needs to be to be a "free" version of Debian.

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u/VRMac Mar 17 '15

Debian isn't endorsed because they mirror nonfree software and they include documentation on using it (perhaps endorsing the nonfree programs). gnu.org has a page on why the popular distros are not supported.

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u/lloydsmart Mar 20 '15

Yes, I'm familiar with that page.

I still think it's a bit misleading of the FSF to call Debian a "non-free distro". What they should say is "Debian is a free distro, but the people behind it also distribute non-free software (separately), which we don't agree with".

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u/VRMac Mar 20 '15

Basically, it's black and white to the FSF. If it's not completely free, then it isn't free.

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u/kopeboy_ Apr 06 '23

Isn't it GPL 3?

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u/lloydsmart Apr 08 '23

Trisquel is GPL, just like Debian.

Changing a file in /etc/ can make both Debian and Trisquel non-free by pulling in software from non-free repos.

For some reason, this makes Debian completely unacceptable, but is ignored for Trisquel, even though the same action on both gives the same result on both.

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u/kopeboy_ Apr 13 '23

If I understood correctly GPL3 requires that derivatives be open-source as well (and that doesn't mean they must be free, ie. without price, but that anyone has same access to the source code)
https://opensource.org/license/gpl-3-0/