This was the major announcement I've spoken about in days past.
Before the next person calls me a hypocrite nothing has changed. I'm not here to make any excuses. They aren't necessary. We have always had a version of the site that includes compatibility information on distributions that include some non-free pieces. It's why I encourage people to link to libre.thinkpenguin.com and not www.thinkpenguin.com. Moving people off of non-free software takes time. I would like to discontinue this although that is unlikely to happen in the immediate future. The major distributions would need to work with us and others more and push harder for users trying out GNU/Linux to replace pieces rather than install non-free drivers.
The majority of distributions include some non-free pieces because most system have a component or two that are dependent on such pieces. I of all people would love distributions which include non-free software to stop doing so. Every computer sold today though includes some non-free software even where a free distribution is installed and is 100% functional. Every person here has had to make some compromises. Richard Stallman is no exception, Rubén Rodríguez is no exception, Clement Lefebvre is no exception, I am no exception. We all have a non-free BIOS (or most of us), we all have some non-free micro code in our systems (all of us).
While you can hide and pretend non-free software does not exist, the Free Software Foundation isn't hiding, the Trisquel project isn't hiding, and others who support the Free Software Foundation's definition of freedom aren't hiding. Working with the 'enemy'' where it is mutually beneficial is standard operating procedure. The only enemy which might be the exception that I can think of is Microsoft. These 'enemies' are those distributions which are including some third party non-free pieces.
Free software was not originally written on free operating systems. A lot of it was originally developed on non-free platforms. The GNU project was started in 1983 and the free software foundation in 1985. The Linux kernel was not started until 1991 and there was no free software platform to work off.
Trisquel itself is based on a distribution which includes non-free software. The bugs that exist in Trisquel and are also in Ubuntu are fixed in a manor which is mutually beneficial. The people working on Trisquel submit patches / bug reports to the upstream project (Ubuntu) where applicable. The Trisquel developers could say “we will take Ubuntu's free code although not work with Canonical”. It doesn't work like that though.
