> For Trisquel I would propose to remove these from current (main) with an
update.
> (So that the next time I get an update, gphpedit will be removed.)
> I guess that is what Debian also does?
No, that's not what Debian does. When Debian removes a package from testing,
that only affects *future* stable releases. They don't remove the package
from current and previous stable releases, and they *especially* don't
forcibly remove the package from users' systems. That would be very
invasive. I'm not even sure Apple does that (though it would not surprise
me).
> (If a package seems non-free it also has to be removed I guess?)
If a package is found to be non-free then it is removed from Trisquel's
repositories, though even then it is not forcibly removed from users' systems
if they already have it installed.
> My worry is also the time span between Debian and Trisquel.
> Is there always such a timespan between Debian and Trisquel?
Trisquel is based on Ubuntu LTS, which like Debian stable has a two year
release cycle, but is offset by approximately one year (Ubuntu 16.04 was
released in 2016, Debian Stretch in 2017, Ubuntu 18.04 in 2018, Debian Buster
in 2019), so the real issue is the delay between Ubuntu LTS releases and the
corresponding Trisquel releases.
> And if so, how could I help Trisquel to possibly reduce that timespan.
If you are comfortable working with shell scripts and studying/modifying
source code, or willing to learn these skills, you can [contribute][1] to
Trisquel development by helping to update Trisquel's package helpers for new
Ubuntu releases. This task is mostly done for Trisquel 9, but will need to
be done again for Trisquel 10 once development begins. That could help
reduce the delay between Ubuntu 20.04 (to be released next month) and
Trisquel 10, although there are other bottlenecks and tasks that volunteers
can't really do anything about.
[1]:
https://devel.trisquel.info/trisquel/package-helpers/blob/flidas/CONTRIBUTING.md
