OpenZA

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced updates to its list of fully free GNU/Linux distributions, including the addition of one new distribution called South Africa-born Kongoni, and a milestone release of the Trisquel system.

Trisquel, which was added to the list last December, has issued its 3.0 release, codenamed “Dwyn.” It is the first in a new series of short term support releases that will be updated every six months with new software to add features, improved performance, and hardware compatibility.

Kongoni, named after the Shona word for “gnu,” is based in Africa. For optimal performance with minimal bandwidth requirements, it uses a packaging system called “ports” that downloads programs as source and builds them automatically.

Trisquel, Kongoni, and the other GNU/Linux system distributions on the FSF’s list only include and only propose free software. They reject non-free applications, non-free programming platforms, non-free drivers, non-free firmware “blobs,” and any other non-free software and documentation. They uphold a commitment to remove any such components as they are discovered – a commitment most well-known GNU/Linux distributions do not follow.

FSF operations manager John Sullivan said, “It’s very encouraging to see this list continuing to increase in both quality and quantity. While others continue to propagate the outdated claim that it’s too hard or not possible to make distributions without proprietary binary firmware and other non-free programs, free software activists and
developers working on projects like Kongoni and Trisquel continue to prove them wrong.”

Both Trisquel and Kongoni are calling for more contributors to help. Trisquel is seeking mirrors, package maintainers, beta testers, translators, and documentation writers. Kongoni is looking for people to help with publicity, and writing new package ports.

The FSF’s guidelines for free system distributions are available on the FSF’s website.