Rubén was looking to consolidate versions in part to reduce his work load.
This means there probably won't be a Triskel unless somebody else takes up
maintenance.
I also threw some ideas at him to see what he thought about changing things
around a bit. I was not necessarily pushing for Trisquel to go one way or
another. I was asking because I wanted to get his expert opinion on the
amount of work required compared to the status quo. Right now most
distributions are released on the tails of Ubuntu. This makes sense generally
speaking for the current user base. However this doesn't work terribly well
for less technical users. And I'm not talking about the people here. I'm
talking about the people who don't know enough to setup there own computer
(let alone install an operating system). Leaning GNU/Linux is easy. To some
degree. However it is not possible for the masses to keep up with the
constant changes.
What I was thinking was switching the release model to be based on Ubuntu
long term support releases solely and then back porting critical pieces.
Abrowser, hplip, linux-libre, and some other critical pieces. This would
allow for better documentation to be developed, books to be printed that can
actually be followed, and hardware support to be improved upon, etc.
He personally likes the idea. Like myself he thinks such a model would work
great for him and lots of others. I too have found the LTS releases are
really almost sufficient if not for a few critical apps. Simply back porting
such critical applications would reduce the work of the less technical and
those who have better things to do than play with GNU/Linux. It's not really
an exclusive realm of the novice users although it would greatly help to ease
adoption. His only issue it seems with taking Trisquel in that direction is
it would reduce the hype/marketing/excitement factor that attracts users. For
this reason I'd agree that Trisquel releases should remain as is.
In any case it is something that I'd love to help fund one day and see
happen. Right now it isn't going to happen. It just doesn't make sense to
waste the resources on it. However I hope things continue to go well with
ThinkPenguin in the months and years ahead and that some day in the not too
distant feature such a solution would be available right alongside Trisquel.
