I believe every distro should be libre by default, with clearly-labeled non-free add-ons for the users that decide they want them. For example - I'd like Puppy (and any other distro) to ship with Linux-libre, while offering users the ability to switch to Linux. Otherwise, free software won't become the norm in the software industry.
Therefore, the process of creating Librepup derivatives has been automated and simplified (see later). If you're interested in creating Puppy derivatives, I encourage you to use Librepup as a base, since other Puppy releases contain non-free components and may have additional, hidden ones: it's a privacy and security risk for your users. Even if you wish to add non-free components to your derivative (which is strongly discouraged), a Librepup derivative with one or more, non-free components is much better (for your users) than a traditional Puppy derivative, with an unknown number of such threats, especially if these components are labeled properly as non-free ones and the user deliberately accepts the risk involved in using them, despite of all warnings.
If you create packages for Librepup, please state whether they're libre or not. If unsure, say you're unsure, it's OK. Also, if you recommend non-free software, state it's non-free. This distinction between free and non-free must be clear: we don't want to mislead users that care about their freedom and privacy into installing non-free software.
Some peripherals that work with tahrpup won't work with Librepup, because they rely on non-free firmware. I repeat: if your hardware relies on non-free firmware, it won't work on Librepup. This is true for many WiFi cards (including but not limited to many Intel, Ralink and Broadcom ones).
Librepup is built using woof-CE-libre, a fork of woof-CE which strips all non-free software. All improvements done in woof-CE-libre were merged into woof-CE, so other Puppy derivatives can benefit from them.
Librepup version numbers correspond to those of the Puppy they're based on, but have an additional digit for Librepup-specific changes.
Librepup is reproducible; woof-CE-libre is always pre-configured to produce the development version of Librepup.
The recommended way to build derivatives of Librepup is to use either woof-CE-libre (for libre derivatives) or woof-CE (for derivatives that add non-free components on top of Librepup).
To build Librepup, run woof-CE-libre through Librepup itself (preferred) or any other recent Puppy release (with the devx loaded):
git clone https://notabug.org/dimkr/woof-CE-libre cd woof-CE-libre ./merge2out
Choose x86, x86, trisquel and belenos.
cd ../woof-out_x86_x86_trisquel_belenos yes "" | ./0setup yes "" | ./1download yes "" | ./2createpackages ./3builddistro-Z
The Librepup logo was drawn by Koz Ross and provided under the terms of the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license.