Linspire
Encyclopedia
Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS, was a commercial operating system
based on Debian GNU/Linux
and later Ubuntu
. Linspire was published by Linspire, Inc. and focused on ease-of-use, targeting home PC users. The last stable release of Linspire was version 6.0, which was released in October 2007.
On July 1, 2008, Linspire stockholders elected to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone
, and all assets were acquired by Xandros
.
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.
, Lindows, Inc. was founded in August 2001 by Michael Robertson with the goal of developing a Linux
-based operating system
capable of running major Microsoft Windows
applications. It based its Windows compatibility on the Wine
API
. The company later abandoned this approach in favor of attempting to make Linux applications easy to download, install and use. To this end a program named "CNR
" was developed: based on Debian's 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.
In 2002 Microsoft
sued Lindows, Inc. claiming the name Lindows constituted an infringement of their Windows trademark. Microsoft's claims were rejected by the court, which asserted that Microsoft had used the term windows to describe graphical user interfaces before the Windows product was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox
and Apple Computer
many years before. Microsoft sought a retrial and after this was postponed in February 2004, 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.
On 15 June 2005, Michael Robertson stepped down as CEO
of Linspire, Inc. He continues as chairman and was replaced as CEO by Kevin Carmony. Carmony resigned from Linspire on July 31, 2007.
Linspire became a member of the Interop Vendor Alliance which was founded in 2006.
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."
On 13 June 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. This agreement has been criticised, most notably by the Groklaw
website 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."
Linspire bases their product code names on fish found near their 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
.
. 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, ranging from simple applications to major commercial works such as Win4Lin
and StarOffice
. 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.
Linspire planned to port CNR to the Ubuntu distribution. The company announced on April 24, 2006 that CNR would be released under an open source licence. The release of the free CNR client was planned to coincide with the release of Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0. On January 23, 2007, Linspire announced that it intended to provide CNR for other Linux distributions, both APT- and RPM
-based, including Debian, Fedora
, OpenSUSE
and Ubuntu. This support was expected to appear in mid-2007. On February 8, 2007, Linspire, Inc. announced a partnership with 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.
In August 2005, Andrew Betts released Freespire
, a Live CD
based on Linspire. Some users mistook this for a product from Linspire, Inc. Linspire, Inc. offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9, 2005. On April 24, 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire". This followed the model of community-oriented releases by Red Hat
and Novell
in the form of 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, three weeks ahead of schedule. It is now known that Freespire will change its code base from Ubuntu to Debian on any future releases. On July 10, 2007 Linspire released Linspire 6.0, based on Freespire 2.0.
and Kopete
instant messaging clients, the Mozilla Firefox
web browser, the ReiserFS
file system, the Nvu
WYSIWYG
website editor, and the KDE-Apps.org and KDE-Look.org websites. In the past, Linspire has hosted several Linux and open source events, such as the annual Desktop Linux Summit
, DebConf
and the KDE Developers Conference.
. This has included criticism for including proprietary software
, with GNU
founder Richard Stallman
commenting: "No other GNU/Linux distribution has backslided so far away from freedom. Switching from MS Windows to Linspire does not bring you to freedom, it just gets you a different master." In addition, following the initial Freespire announcement Pamela Jones
of the Groklaw
website published an article entitled "Freespire: A Linux Distro For When You Couldn't Care Less About Freedom;" that was highly critical of Linspire, Inc., and the Freespire project, for including closed-source components and advertising them as a favourable point—an action she classed as ignoring FOSS community values in a "community-driven" distribution, asserting that "Free Software isn't about proprietary drivers" and that "proprietary codecs, drivers and applications are not Open Source or open in any way." In response, Linspire, Inc. CEO Kevin Carmony stated via a journalist on the Linspire website that in ten years of holding out, the FOSS community has made relatively few gains, that many users are already using proprietary software and, although some would hold out, most would prefer to have something that works rather than nothing. He also asserted that the company believed in open source software, but also in the freedom of individuals to choose whatever software they want.
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
based on Debian GNU/Linux
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
and later Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
. Linspire was published by Linspire, Inc. and focused on ease-of-use, targeting home PC users. The last stable release of Linspire was version 6.0, which was released in October 2007.
On July 1, 2008, Linspire stockholders elected to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone
Digital Cornerstone
Digital Cornerstone is a Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in San Diego, California. It has primarily targeted desktop computers with its flagship Linux distribution, Linspire...
, and all assets were acquired by Xandros
Xandros
Xandros is the name of both a line of operating systems and Xandros Corporation, the company which creates them. Xandros Desktop was a Linux distribution. The name Xandros is derived from the X Window System and the Greek island of Andros....
.
On August 8, 2008, Andreas Typaldos, CEO of Xandros, announced that Linspire would be discontinued in favor of Xandros; Freespire
Freespire
Freespire was a community-driven Linux distribution which was composed mostly of free, open source software, while providing users the choice of including proprietary software including multimedia codecs, device drivers and application software....
would change its base code from Ubuntu to Debian; and the Linspire brand would cease to exist.
History
Based in San Diego, CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Lindows, Inc. was founded in August 2001 by Michael Robertson with the goal of developing a Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
-based operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
capable of running major Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
applications. It based its Windows compatibility on the Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
. The company later abandoned this approach in favor of attempting to make Linux applications easy to download, install and use. To this end a program named "CNR
CNR (software)
CNR was a free one-click software delivery service that was created to make finding and installing Linux software easier. It assists the user in finding and installing software on their computer, it sits dormant in the system tray when not in use....
" was developed: based on Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool
Advanced Packaging Tool
The Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT, is a free user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and its variants...
, it provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee. The first public release of Lindows was version 1.0, released in late 2001.
In 2002 Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
sued Lindows, Inc. claiming the name Lindows constituted an infringement of their Windows trademark. Microsoft's claims were rejected by the court, which asserted that Microsoft had used the term windows to describe graphical user interfaces before the Windows product was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
and Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
many years before. Microsoft sought a retrial and after this was postponed in February 2004, 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.
On 15 June 2005, Michael Robertson stepped down as CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Linspire, Inc. He continues as chairman and was replaced as CEO by Kevin Carmony. Carmony resigned from Linspire on July 31, 2007.
Linspire became a member of the Interop Vendor Alliance which was founded in 2006.
On February 8, 2007 Linspire, Inc. and Canonical Ltd, the lead sponsor and developer of the Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
operating system, announced plans for a new technology partnership, with Linspire aiming to "begin basing ... [their] desktop Linux offerings on Ubuntu."
On 13 June 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. This agreement has been criticised, most notably by the Groklaw
Groklaw
Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones at Radio UserLand, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and...
website for being disingenuously short-lived and limited, and against the spirit of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. 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."
Linspire bases their product code names on fish found near their headquarters: Linspire/LindowsOS 4.5 was code named Coho
Coho salmon
The Coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". It is the state animal of Chiba, Japan.-Description:...
; Linspire Five-0 (5.0 and 5.1) and Freespire 1.0, Marlin
Marlin
Marlin, family Istiophoridae, are fish with an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long rigid dorsal fin, which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to derive from its resemblance to a sailor's marlinspike...
; and Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0, Skipjack
Skipjack tuna
The skipjack tuna, Katsuwonus pelamis, is a medium-sized perciform fish in the tuna family, Scombridae. It is otherwise known as the aku, arctic bonito, mushmouth, oceanic bonito, striped tuna, or victor fish...
.
CNR
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 proprietaryProprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
. 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, ranging from simple applications to major commercial works such as Win4Lin
Win4Lin
Win4Lin was a proprietary software application for Linux which allowed users to run a copy of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 or XP applications on their Linux desktop.-Overview:...
and StarOffice
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
. 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.
Linspire planned to port CNR to the Ubuntu distribution. The company announced on April 24, 2006 that CNR would be released under an open source licence. The release of the free CNR client was planned to coincide with the release of Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0. On January 23, 2007, Linspire announced that it intended to provide CNR for other Linux distributions, both APT- and RPM
RPM Package Manager
RPM Package Manager is a package management system. The name RPM variously refers to the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself...
-based, including Debian, Fedora
Fedora (operating system)
Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
, OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
and Ubuntu. This support was expected to appear in mid-2007. On February 8, 2007, Linspire, Inc. announced a partnership with Canonical Ltd.
Canonical Ltd.
Canonical Ltd. is a private company founded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu Linux and related projects. Canonical is registered in London and employs staff around the world...
, 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.
Freespire
Freespire
Freespire was a community-driven Linux distribution which was composed mostly of free, open source software, while providing users the choice of including proprietary software including multimedia codecs, device drivers and application software....
, a Live CD
Live CD
A live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive...
based on Linspire. Some users mistook this for a product from Linspire, Inc. Linspire, Inc. offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9, 2005. On April 24, 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire". This followed the model of community-oriented releases by Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
and Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
in the form of Fedora
Fedora (operating system)
Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
and openSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
. 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, three weeks ahead of schedule. It is now known that Freespire will change its code base from Ubuntu to Debian on any future releases. On July 10, 2007 Linspire released Linspire 6.0, based on Freespire 2.0.
Contributions
Linspire, Inc. sponsored open source projects including the PidginPidgin (software)
Pidgin is an open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple. Libpurple has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various services from one application.The number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over 3...
and Kopete
Kopete
Kopete is a multi-protocol, free software instant messaging client. Although it can run in numerous environments, it was designed for and integrates with the KDE desktop environment...
instant messaging clients, the Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
web browser, the ReiserFS
ReiserFS
ReiserFS is a general-purpose, journaled computer file system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser. ReiserFS is currently supported on Linux . Introduced in version 2.4.1 of the Linux kernel, it was the first journaling file system to be included in the standard kernel...
file system, the Nvu
Nvu
Nvu is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko 1.7. It is a common WYSIWYG editor for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh, intended to be an open source equivalent to proprietary software like Microsoft Expression Web and Adobe Dreamweaver...
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
website editor, and the KDE-Apps.org and KDE-Look.org websites. In the past, Linspire has hosted several Linux and open source events, such as the annual Desktop Linux Summit
Desktop Linux Summit
The Desktop Linux Summit was a discontinued annual conference with a program of speakers addressing desktop Linux issues. It ran from 2003 to 2006, meeting in San Diego, California.It was hosted by Linspire....
, DebConf
Debconf
DebConf is the yearly conference where Debian developers meet to discuss issues around the further development of the system.Besides the scheduled workshops and talks, Debian developers take the opportunity to hack on the Debian system in a more informal setting...
and the KDE Developers Conference.
Criticism
Linspire has drawn some criticism from the free software communityFree software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
. This has included criticism for including proprietary software
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
, with GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
founder Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
commenting: "No other GNU/Linux distribution has backslided so far away from freedom. Switching from MS Windows to Linspire does not bring you to freedom, it just gets you a different master." In addition, following the initial Freespire announcement Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and editor of Groklaw, an award-winning website that covers legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community...
of the Groklaw
Groklaw
Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones at Radio UserLand, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and...
website published an article entitled "Freespire: A Linux Distro For When You Couldn't Care Less About Freedom;" that was highly critical of Linspire, Inc., and the Freespire project, for including closed-source components and advertising them as a favourable point—an action she classed as ignoring FOSS community values in a "community-driven" distribution, asserting that "Free Software isn't about proprietary drivers" and that "proprietary codecs, drivers and applications are not Open Source or open in any way." In response, Linspire, Inc. CEO Kevin Carmony stated via a journalist on the Linspire website that in ten years of holding out, the FOSS community has made relatively few gains, that many users are already using proprietary software and, although some would hold out, most would prefer to have something that works rather than nothing. He also asserted that the company believed in open source software, but also in the freedom of individuals to choose whatever software they want.