> If Canonical are such a bad faith player among GNU/Linux > distributions, why is Trisquel based off of Ubuntu?
I don't know I'd go so far as to say "bad faith." Their goals are often parallel to, but ultimately different from ours. They have done a lot to facilitate the adoption of GNU/Linux, which on its own is a good thing for software freedom. Their approach to doing so has sometimes had positive effects for software freedom. At other times I'd argue it has been negative. I expect the Snap Store to have negative effects for software freedom. Trisquel has been based on Ubuntu for a long time, and this snap stuff is a relatively recent development. > I don't have much knowledge with GNU/Linux systems so excuse my lack > of knowledge, but from what I've gathered Debian is free > out-of-the-box whilst Ubuntu isn't. Wouldn't it be easier from a > developer standpoint to 'Free' Debian than Ubuntu, or are there > benefits for Trisquel being tied to Ubuntu that I am not seeing? Yes and no. Both Debian and Ubuntu maintain repositories of non-free software. Ubuntu's are enabled by default, whereas Debian's are disabled by default, so in that sense Debian is more free out-of-the-box. Debian attempts to distance itself from their non-free repositories and does not heavily encourage their use, so in that sense they are also better than Ubuntu. However, neither of those things makes these distros easier or harder than one another to free. It is just as easy for Trisquel to exclude Ubuntu's Multiverse and Restricted repositories as it would be to exclude Debian's contrib and non-free repositories. The default configuration and culture around Debian and Ubuntu is only relevant to Debian and Ubuntu users, not us. Most of the changes we make to Ubuntu are rebranding or modifying free packages that install or recommend non-free ones. Both Debian and Ubuntu need to be modified in this way in order to follow the Free System Distribution Guidelines. There may be a few ways in which it might be easier to be based on Debian. For example, Ubuntu's universe repository does not receive security updates, which requires us to do things like import Tor from the Tor developers instead of Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu also has some advantages, like a more user-friendly installer. Right now I think it is worth being based on Ubuntu. I'm just concerned that this might change in the future.
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