Here goes the story of Freespire [From wikipedia] :
In August 2005, a distribution LiveCD called "Freespire" hit the web by
accident. Freespire was a GNU/Linux distribution based on the source pools
from Linspire. This distribution was created by Andrew Betts (
http://www.andrewbetts.com/ ) and was not produced or released by Linspire
Inc. Freespire was confused by some users to be an actual product from
Linspire, and its creator voluntarily changed the name to avoid legal
problems from Linspire. As of the name change, the former Freespire adopted
a development codename "Squiggle" (
http://www.squiggleos.org/ ), and began
contemplation of a new distro name. Linspire then, on the back of the
generated publicity, offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price
discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9th
2005, thereby greatly increasing its userbase. Squiggle OS however, is no
longer in development.
As of April 24, 2006, Linspire announced "Freespire" (
http://www.freespire.org ). The new Freespire distribution was announced by
Linspire President and CEO Kevin Carmony. This distribution, will be a
Debian-based, community driven and supported project tied to the commercial
Linspire distribution
Here we are not having much freespire users.But there is a Gang of
non-pirated as well as pirated [term is here since its having a cost and
license is EULA] Linspire users
On 4/25/06, Harish Narayanan <harish(a)gamebox.net> wrote:
Hiran Venugopalan wrote:
I am now seeing many guys here who SAYS them as
Linux [GNU/Linux Users]
and
talks about freedom.But when I ask them about the
distro there reply is
some
times sad one for me - linspire.I dont think the
linspire as
Linux.Itssimply
proprietary.Its on EULA.Although the basic
GNU/Linux system is free
software, most of the GNU/Linux versions now available include a small
amount of non-free software--just enough to spoil them as a way to
attain
freedom. But Linspire is in a class by itself;
large and important parts
of
this system are non-free. No other GNU/Linux
distribution has back
slided so
far away from freedom. Switching from MS Windows
to Linspire does not
bring
you to freedom, it just gets you a different
master.
Not that I disagree with you or anything, but in an attempt to correct
that image, they've recently released a project called Freespire
[
http://www.freespire.org/]. As far as I understand it, this contains
Free software, whereas Linspire is the tainted product with all the
proprietary drivers, codecs and software.
Actually, I just went though their FAQ, and quoting from question number
6:
"6. So, is Freespire open source or proprietary?
Again, the choice is yours. There are two versions of Freespire
available. The main Freespire version is approximately 99% open source,
as it does include certain proprietary drivers, codecs and software in
cases where there are no viable open source solutions yet available."
Clearly, they haven't learnt. Don't mind this e-mail.
Harish
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| Hiran Venugopalan |
| Palakkad Libre software Users Society | Adding freedom to common minds |
| Hiranyam | Ayodhya Nagar | Pallipuram Post | Palakkad | Kerala | PIN
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| 09846951870 | hiran.v(a)gmail.com |