Linspire

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Linspire
proprietary software licenses.
Official websitelinspirelinux.com

Linspire (formerly Lindows) is a commercial operating system based on Debian and Ubuntu and currently owned by PC/OpenSystems LLC. It had been owned by Linspire. Inc. from 2001 to 2008, and then by Xandros from 2008 to 2017.

On July 1, 2008, Linspire stockholders elected to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone,[2] and all assets were acquired by Xandros.[3]

On August 8, 2008, Andreas Typaldos, CEO of Xandros, announced that Linspire would be discontinued in favor of Xandros; Freespire would change its base code from Ubuntu to Debian; and the Linspire brand would cease to exist.[4]

On January 1, 2018, it was announced that PC/OpenSystems LLC had purchased Linspire and Freespire from Xandros, and that Linspire 7 was available for $79.99, while Freespire 3 was available for free.[5]

History

See also:
Microsoft vs. Lindows

Based in

Advanced Packaging Tool, it provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee. The first public release of Lindows was version 1.0, released in late 2001.[7]

In 2002,

Apple Computer many years before.[8] Microsoft sought a retrial and after this was postponed in February 2004,[9] offered to settle the case. As part of the licensing settlement, Microsoft paid an estimated $20 million, and Lindows, Inc. transferred the Lindows trademark to Microsoft and changed its name to Linspire, Inc.[10]

In 2003, Lindows Mobile PC, which starts at $799, was launched. Lindows said that about Excel about 95%, Word about 90% and PowerPoint about 80% functional. The notebook computer was low cost. Its processor, 933-megahertz C3, was made by VIA Technologies. The laptop weighed 2.9 pounds, had a 12.1-inch screen, 256 megabytes of RAM and a 20-gigabyte hard drive.[11]

On June 15, 2005, Michael Robertson stepped down as

CEO of Linspire, Inc. He continues as chairman[citation needed
] and was replaced as CEO by Kevin Carmony.

Linspire became a member of the Interop Vendor Alliance which was founded in 2006.[12][13][14][15]

On February 8, 2007, Linspire, Inc. and Canonical Ltd, the lead sponsor and developer of the

Ubuntu operating system, announced plans for a new technology partnership, with Linspire aiming to "begin basing ... [their] desktop Linux offerings on Ubuntu."[16]

On June 13, 2007, Linspire and Microsoft announced an interoperability collaboration agreement with a focus on document format compatibility, instant messaging, digital media, web search, and patent covenants for Linspire customers.[17] This agreement was criticised, most notably by the Groklaw website[18] for being disingenuously short-lived and limited, and against the spirit of the GNU General Public License. Kevin Carmony, in one of the regular "Linspire Letters," asserted that the agreement would "bring even more choices to desktop Linux users [and] ... offer a "better" Linux experience."[19]

Linspire bases its product code names on fish found near its headquarters: Linspire/LindowsOS 4.5 was code named Coho; Linspire Five-0 (5.0 and 5.1) and Freespire 1.0, Marlin; and Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0, Skipjack.

CNR

Main article: CNR (software)

Linspire's CNR (originally Click'N'Run) was a software distribution service based on Debian's APT. It was designed to serve as a GUI-based, user-accessible means of downloading and installing various applications, both free and proprietary. The service allowed users to install available applications using a single click. CNR also included a set of Click and Buy (CNB) software, which included many commercial applications to members at a discounted rate. CNR had over 38,000 different software packages[citation needed], ranging from simple applications to major commercial works such as Win4Lin and StarOffice.[20] CNR was originally subscription-based with two tiers: basic service cost $20 annually, and gold, featuring discounts on some commercial applications, $50. In 2006, Linspire announced that the basic service was to be made available for free.[21]

Linspire planned to port CNR to the Ubuntu distribution. The company announced on April 24, 2006 that CNR would be released under an

Canonical Ltd., publisher of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. This deal would see Linspire and Freespire migrate from the unpredictable Debian release process to the semiannual Ubuntu release cycle. It was intended that the main Ubuntu distribution would become the first recipient of the opening of the Click'N'Run service to Linux distributions besides Linspire.[16]

Freespire

Main article: Freespire
Freespire RC1

In August 2005, Andrew Betts released

Fedora and openSUSE
. Freespire was a community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, and included previously proprietary elements from Linspire, such as the CNR Client, while other elements, which Linspire, Inc. licenses but does not own, like the Windows Media Audio compatibility libraries, remain closed-source. Consequently, there are two versions of Freespire, one with the closed source libraries, and one, called Freespire OSS Edition, that includes only open-source components.

Freespire 1.0 was released on August 7, 2006.[25] Freespire 2.0.8, released on 30 November 2007,[26] and based on Ubuntu 7.04, was the final release until the distribution was revived with 3.0 in January 2018.[27]

Contributions

Linspire, Inc. sponsored open source projects including the

DebConf and the KDE Developers Conference.[citation needed
]

Criticism

Linspire has drawn some criticism from the

open source software, but also in the freedom of individuals to choose whatever software they want.[31]

See also

References

  1. ^ ""Linspire 14 Released"". Archived from the original on 2024-01-17. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
  2. ^ Brown, Eric (2008-07-01). "Xandros quietly acquires Linspire". DesktopLinux.com. EWeek. Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  3. ^ "Xandros Acquires Linspire, Creator of CNR Application Distribution Facility and Freespire Desktop" (Press release). Xandros. 2008-07-02. Archived from the original on 2020-02-07. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  4. ^ Gasperson, Tina (2008-08-08). "Linspire Is Going Away". Linux.com. Archived from the original on 2013-07-01. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  5. ^ "Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 released" (Press release). PC/OpenSystems LLC. 2018-01-01. Archived from the original on 2018-01-10. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
  6. ^ "Form S-1". Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2022-07-12.
  7. ^ Dvorak, John C. (2001-10-26). "The Lindows Conundrum". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 2006-03-12. Retrieved 2006-05-02.
  8. ^ "Microsoft's Appeal in 'Lindows' Case Rejected". internetnews.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2006-05-02.
  9. ^ "Lindows wins in US court Microsoft ruling". Silicon.com. Archived from the original on 2005-02-08. Retrieved 2006-05-02.
  10. ^ "Lindows And Microsoft Settle Suit". The New York Times. 2004-07-20. Archived from the original on 2006-03-25. Retrieved 2008-10-12.
  11. ^ "Lindows Goes Mobile". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2020-08-12. Retrieved 2024-04-20.
  12. ^ Worthington, David (23 October 2007). "Microsoft, Turbolinux Reach Patent Pact". sdtimes.com. SD Times. Archived from the original on 7 April 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  13. ^ "Linspire Joins Interop Vendor Alliance Program". linuxelectrons.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2013-07-17.
  14. ^ .NETDJ News Desk (July 31, 2007). "Linspire, One of Microsoft's New Patent Covenant Buddies Joins Interop Alliance ...Which already includes Novell, of course, and the purer, untainted Red Hat". sys-con.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2009.
  15. ^ "Member Directory". InteropVendorAlliance.org. Archived from the original on March 30, 2009. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
  16. ^ a b "Canonical and Linspire Announce Technology Partnership" (Press release). London & San Diego. February 8, 2007. Archived from the original on February 19, 2007. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
  17. ^ "Microsoft and Linspire Collaboration Promotes Interoperability and Customer Choice". Microsoft. 2007-06-13. Archived from the original on 2007-06-19. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  18. ^ "Analysis of Microsoft-Linspire covenant terms". 2007-06-13. Archived from the original on 2010-05-05. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  19. ^ Carmony, Kevin (2007-06-14). "Microsoft Will Help Deliver a "Better" Linux". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
  20. ^ "CNR Warehouse - catalogue of software titles downloadable via CNR". Archived from the original on 2006-04-25. Retrieved 2006-04-27.
  21. ^ "Linspire Does Away with Annual Fee for "Click 'N Run" Linux Service". Linspire.com. Archived from the original on 2006-10-15. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
  22. ^ "Freespire Roadmap". wiki.freespire.org. Archived from the original on 2009-07-01.
  23. ^ FAQ Category: About Freespire and The Freespire Project - Freespire
  24. ^ "Linspire launches Freespire, open-sources CNR". Newsforge.com. Archived from the original on 2013-08-14. Retrieved 2006-04-25.
  25. ^ "Freespire version 1.0 is now available". forum.freespire.org. Archived from the original on 2006-08-13. Retrieved 2006-08-08.
  26. ^ "Freespire 2". Freespire wiki. freespire.org. 2007-11-30. Archived from the original on 2007-09-20. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  27. ^ "Freespire". DistroWatch.com. Archived from the original on 2018-06-23. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  28. ^ KDE-Apps.org Archived 2016-06-17 at the Wayback Machine and KDE-Look.org Archived 2020-12-14 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ Matzan, Jem (2005-03-31). "Distro review: The four-1-1 on Linspire Five-0". Linux.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-14. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
  30. ^ Jones, Pamela (2006-04-24). "Freespire: A Linux Distro For When You Couldn't Care Less About Freedom". Groklaw.net. Archived from the original on 2010-05-05. Retrieved 2007-02-07.
  31. ^ Parris, DC (2006-05-09). "Kevin Carmony: Walking The Line of a Divided Community". Archived from the original on 2006-11-09. Retrieved 2007-02-07.

External links

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