OSNews

I wouldn't mind giving it a try, but I continually wonder , just how much support there will actually be for theis distro from the community. I don't doubt that linspire is willing to work with the community, but I wonder how many in the community have a desire to work with freespire.

Edited 2006-07-16 21:46

Hard to say of course, but I imagine there would be some desire, since Freespire was originally an entirely community created alternative (not that one would know it, given that their page says "Linspire is the founder, maintainer and lead sponsor of the Freespire project.") Unless you're thinking that any interest was exactly because Linspire wasn't involved, and that it will disappear now that they are

Alot of talk has been made about Linspire and Freespire shipping with proprietary contect and alot of the time people have seen that as a negative quality. While some users might appreciate the built-in support for W32Codecs and the like, others see it as a betrayal of OSS and Free Software in general. Unfortunately the people most likely turned away are the people you definately want on your side, they are the linux guru's that really know their stuff.

I think freespire is a good idea, but lately with the complete nature of Ubuntu as a windows desktop replacement, I don't see alot of support coming from the 'hardcore' community. Ubuntu doesn't ship with proprietary codecs and the like (although I think it does have the nvidia drivers) but it does add the option do download them if you need them.

All I definately know is that I would like to give FreeSpire to my parents so I could rid them of the virus that is Windows once and for all.

Kevin Carmony stated in his post that he wants to keep this early release quiet, as there are plenty of things to improve upon; he would rather have a media buzz surrounding the 1.0 release. I would not be surprised if this announcement hits the Distro Watch Weekly Newsletter.

Just installing it now, and oh wow, the installer just doesn't compare to anything else. It's so simple it makes installing Windows/Ubuntu/OS X look over complicated.

If Freespire shows it can be done, why is it so hard for others to follow, really?

I can understand some of the concerns about whether people will contribute or not. At the same time - if folks were to go to the site and check around they might be surprised as to who is already involved. The Freespire project should not be confused with the release a few months back of the same named ISO. That was a pet project of a Insider of Linspire and someone released it without his permission. Little did he know that Linspire had been working on this "project" for a couple years. That individual is also on the new Freespire board. Here is a list of the current board members:

http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_Leadership_Board_Home

Andrew Betts - (The insider who's project was released)
Jono Bacon (Linux and Open Source Consultant)
Kevin Carmony (Linspire's CEO)
Jim Curtin (CEO - Win4Lin)
Martin Michlmayr (Spent 10 years as Debian project leader.)
Jeff Mitchell (Amarok developer - MIT research staff)
Ian Murdoch (CTO Free Standard Group - Founder of Debian)
Chris Norman (IT Director - Cinemark Theaters)
Chris John Ramaglia (Creator of Klikit)
Mathew Revell (Writer and LugRadio presenter)
Kevin Shockey (Editor in Chief, Tux Magazine)
Tom Welsh (Senior Programming Manager - LDS Church)

One should really check out the Freespire site and Wiki before coming to any conclusions. There will be a ISO that has proprietary code and there will be a totally open version. With either one you will be able to use either apt-get or for those who use CNR - CNR. Apps that cost money - such as Win4Lin and a DVD Player can be purchased through CNR. Even for those who do not choose to sign up for CNR. Those who want to use Apt - can do so.

The root versus user is no longer a issue. Freespire uses sudo in much the same way Ubuntu does.

Check it out and poke around. Folks might be surprised.

No I don't work for Linspire. LOL

"Kevin Carmony stated in his post that he wants to keep this early release quiet, as there are plenty of things to improve upon; he would rather have a media buzz surrounding the 1.0 release. I would not be surprised if this announcement hits the Distro Watch Weekly Newsletter."

I believe you are correct - however as usual - the cat is out of the bag.

This first release is Beta 1. It definitely Beta material. People should not expect anything more. There is at this point only one initial release. The Wiki does explain the timeline and plan for releases.

It does work, but there are many bugs (Did I mention this was Beta software????) so don't expect a completely smooth ride.

Feel like testing and helping find the Bugs? Download it. It is free!

within the hour at http://shots.osdir.com

According to Carmony, this release includes out-of-the-box support for proprietary formats such as .mp3 and WMV, plug-and-play support for Ati and nVIDIA cards...

I am not a legal expert but didn't the act of bundling propritery nvidia card drivers land another distribution into trouble some time back?

On a different note, I think this is the step in the right direction for a Linux distribution and kudos to Carmony for taking this step of releasing Freespire.

Edited 2006-07-17 01:05

As an agency that gives out free computers that has very small budget we have long used Linux because of cost. Right now we use SuSE. Because it is easy to install and maintain even for a novice. I can tell you that 100 copies of Linux went to our clients so far in the last year.

As for the usability of Linux - We have no problems getting people started using it right away. The Vast majority of the computers we give out keep their Linux installs. We know because we follow up and know what is happening on about 80% of our system.

http://computers4all.org/page7.html

for more information on this.

We have tried many Linux Distros over the years - and in fact had passed on Linspire in the past because of Attached cost and not because of any problems encountered by the average novice that uses it. Once Freespire is a little further along we will give it another examination.

I just hope they hurry and put the FREE in FREESPIRE! Until then they have just rolled out a different linspire IMO.

When I see them offering a truly "free" distro is when I will be interested and I will feel like they are really trying to be more than a commercial distro.

Interesting read:

http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?t=122&page=2

In my opinion Rasbelin has valid points (he's started posting at the bottom)

My intension with this is to What to do you think? No flame or that kind

Have been working with Freespire since it became available yesterday, and it looks to be an excellent distro, particularly for the migrating Windows user. With the expiration of support for Win98, it couldn't come at a better time for those users wishing to replace that OS with something highly usable and more secure.

I've encountered very few bugs, and have already adopted Freespire as the only OS on one machine, and will be dual booting with Win XP on another. Although the Linspire folks don't recommend Freespire beta for production use, I already feel comfortable depending on it.

The Linspire/Freespire team deserve a hand of applause for a job well done. Attractive interface, nice bundle of supporting apps. Supports both CNR and apt-get. My wireless works great out of the box, and so does my nVidia GF6600 card (glxgears = 4139 fps). A distro like this can only help to spread the use of Linux on the desktop.

I've tried them all: Mandriva, Xandros, SUSE, Red Hat, etc. Each of them has something great to offer, and each is aimed at a different market of users. But Freespire is the best out-of-box experience for home users, IMHO.

Well, looks like the cat's out of the bag. =)

I wanted to respond to a few of the comments...

I don't doubt that linspire is willing to work with the community, but I wonder how many in the community have a desire to work with freespire.

Linspire has a long history of working with open source projects. http://linspire.com/opensource Everything we do has ALWAYS been open sourced with the one exception being the CNR client, and even that we're now open sourcing. We started and fund important projects like Nvu, Lphoto and Lsongs. We fund Mozilla, ReiserFS, KDE, GAIM, Kopete, and many more. Every piece of code we write on all these projects is open and contributed back. Linspire also has one of the largest and most active "communities" already, so I'm not sure why Freespire would be any different. I've got to believe I'm the most accessible and open CEO of any major Linux distro. You can find literally thousands of my posts on the net. Anyone is welcome to email me. I'd say we try pretty hard to not only work with the community, but be an important part of it.

While some users might appreciate the built-in support for W32Codecs and the like, others see it as a betrayal of OSS and Free Software in general.

We have a weekly blog at Linspire called the Linspire Letter. It goes out to about a half million subscribers each week. At the end of each blog, people can vote if they agree or disagree with the message that week. Agreement ranges from a low 42.9% agreeing, to the highest agreement of 94.3%. If you take a look at the results of these blogs here: http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter_report.php?sort=agree&o... you might be surprised to see the highest level of agreement was for my piece called Freespire: The "Hybrid" OS. Yes, as with anything, you can't please all the people all the time, but it would appear the idea of letting FOSS and all other software play nicely together is an idea that most people seem to like. All we're saying with Freespire is that users should be free to decide what software runs on their computer, no restrictions. Being beholden to the "God of Open Source" can be just as restrictive as being chained to the Microsoft monopoly. We believe in total freedom on our computers, beholden only to our personal preferences. People can choose to run Freespire without ANY proprietary software if they wish, or they can mix in nVidia drivers, mp3 support, DVD playback, etc. It's up to them. Not you. Not me. The user.

I would not be surprised if this announcement hits the Distro Watch Weekly Newsletter.

Who knows. Maybe that was my real plan all along. ;-)

One should really check out the Freespire site and Wiki before coming to any conclusions.

Thank you. That's all I'd ask as well.

I am not a legal expert but didn't the act of bundling proprietary nvidia card drivers land another distribution into trouble some time back?

Everything we include is legally licensed for use and distribution in this way.

I just hope they hurry and put the FREE in FREESPIRE! Until then they have just rolled out a different linspire IMO. When I see them offering a truly "free" distro is when I will be interested and I will feel like they are really trying to be more than a commercial distro.

There will be two versions of Freespire, always made available for free (no cost) to download. The first is the regular, complete version with the proprietary bits tossed in, and the Freespire OSS Edition which uses only 100% open source software. We let the user decide. The OSS Edition will be available to download this week.

Kevin Carmony
CEO, Linspire

Anyone here tried this under parallels?

It is hard for me to agree with Rasbelin for many reasons. His first paragraph is nothing more than the regurgitation of the sentiments of Bruce Perrens when RedHat first released the Fedora Core project.

Yeah, RedHat and Novelle and Linspire benefit from the work of the community that surrounds Fedora, OpenSuse, and Freespire. The same is true of Sun Microsytems receiving benefit from OpenOffice. My question would have to be, so what? I hear no vilification of Sun for offering OOo.

In his second paragraph he goes on to state all the many reasons they will not get community people involved in the project. Mostly the old root argument is repeated a few times. It is hard for me to take that seriously when the Freespire Leadership consists of men like Ian Murdoch-the very founder of Debian. It is Debian's definitions that the OSI bases much of their structure on. Jono Bacon, one of the finest Linux writers the Uk has to offer and true defender of freedom of code in many of his writings in magazines like Linux Format (A sponsor of the FSF). Andrew Betts, a card carrying member of the FSF and the one who first brought the term Freespire into the public eye. I could go on, the point is, these are the people who are the moral compass of Freespire and I would be hard pressed to believe that Ian Murdoch is easily duped, a member of the evil empire, or one that people in the community who are willing to have an open mind are not willing to follow or at least hear out.

Third paragraph, he claims Freespire acts in bad faith to the community, does not contribute, does not honor the GPL, etc etc etc. This does not gel with an organization that is a primary sponsor of Mozilla, Firefox, KDE League, WINE, and many more ( http://www.linspire.com/lindows_products_license.php#ope ). They are on record for having given the code back for their many improvements and tweaks to the web browser and other application. Imagine, a company that has yet to post a profit donating millions of dollars to open source projects and giving code back? This is not the behavior of the Sheriff of Nottingham. As far as not being in compliance with the GPL, if they were not, the FSF would have had a legal team on them like flies on poop. RMS is not exactly the biggest fan of Linspire, but cannot deny they are in compliance, Linspire has been in communication with the FSF in that regard.

4th paragraph does admit Linspire gives money to key projects, but insists it's motives are a buy off. Prove it. This is an accusation with no proof. Then, back to the root argument and accusation of preserving the windows like mentality as opposed to the Linux way, there seems to be one Linux method of use which is odd considering all the distros, shells, gui's, and we still have not yet figures out if a real guru uses vi or emacs ;-).

I could go on, but I am getting tired.

This is about choice. There are many that are in the FSF camp and that is fine. There are distros suited to your tastes and appeal. There are other distros like Mepis and Freespire that believe it is acceptable to have freedom of choice and that the amalgamation of proprietary and free software does not necessarily make you a bad citizen.

Freespire has a vision and a road map on their WIKI. the Leadership board was hand picked, the Community Board was elected by the members of the forum and the mail lists, and the technology board will be formed by it's chair in due time per the road map.

It is easy to be cynical and accusatory, especially with years of FUD and misinformation. It takes true grit to not only look into the facts, but to also have tolerance and respect for differing philosophies.

Edited 2006-07-17 03:16

We all like to point to Firefox and OpenOffice.org as shining examples of FOSS, but where would Firefox be without the millions Netscape (and later AOL) poured into Mozilla, and where would OpenOffice be without the millions Sun has poured into it?

Novell, Red Hat, Sun, Linspire, and many other commercial companies need FOSS to get better, so we invest in it. If these companies are successful (other than Red Hat, there aren't too many examples of "profitable" Linux companies, or companies that have profitable Linux operations), they will be in a position to continue to support Linux and FOSS.

As with regular communities (cities), they thrive or die based on not only the people who live in those cities, but also the economic vitality of those communities. Most of us like living in places with healthy economies, because everything elevates and gets better (roads, schools, etc.). FOSS communities are no different. How nice do you think the roads and school would be in an economically depressed area? Or an area void of commerce? Linux is no different.

The key is that all these companies, for the most part, embrace the open nature of FOSS, so they are able to give back to it, without taking anything away from it that harms it.

Kevin

I highly suggest visiting the Freespire Wiki ( http://wiki.freespire.org ) and the Freespire Forums ( http://forum.freespire.org ) prior to making any "presumptions" about the Freespire project.

I must also re-iterate what Kevin already discussed -

Many people have this idea that anything Linspire touches is "Evil" and should be avoided. Remember that when your using the newest KDE, chatting with Kopete, burning a CD with K3B, when your browsing for desktop enhancements on kde-look.org, using the ReiserFS, or browsing the web with Firefox that Linspire has contributed millions of dollars to help those projects with expenses and has therefore enhanced your Linux experience.

Linspire always gives back its source code (excluding CNR - but, that is going opensource soon), and that source code is always available from their site.

Freespire will be an excellent distro because the people working behind it are extremely intelligent, experienced, and dedicated to their work. Linspire has always displayed some of the best PR and Support that I have seen from any corporation. Many of Linspire's employees frequent the Linspire & Freespire forums. Most notably, Kevin Carmony, Linspire's CEO is always just an email away...its not like your just sending out a message, and then hoping for a reply that never shows up like it is with most other companies, With Linspire you will always get a response.

I guess what attracts me most to Linspire/Freespire is the community and how personally the company interacts with its community. Linspire/Freespire gets rid of the "I Am The Almighty Linux Guru - Thou Noobs Shall Bow Before My Geekness" attitude, and is instead a place for learning and making progress instead of fighting distro wars and battles over gnome/kde.

(Alright - there are some debates about gnome/kde, etc - but, it doesnt take up 1/2 of the posts like it is in other forums.)

Edited 2006-07-17 03:56

There are many who have different views on freedom. I respect he FSF and love the gift we have of the GPL. Some do fear that the GPL3 may restrict freedoms in the name of freedom. Be it a correct fear or an over reaction-only time will tell. We do have the right to start asking the deeper questions. I do not believe use of proprietary software on the same platform as free software makes one a bad citizen. RMS allowed the C Compiler to be used on proprietary Unix systems for decades. Firefox is used blatently on Windows machines and we all high five each other when a community or business replaces MS Office with OOo. It is a work in progress and is in need of correction in the grammar and syntax; but here is the first draft of an essay I am working on that touches on this and is inspired by the freedom of choice Freespire is reaching for.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID...

Are they only planning of releasing an ISO or are they going to open the repositores to public so people can install minimal and grab rest off apt.

I will try it once such repositores are up!

I must admit, I find it incredible that the head of Linspire himself visits forums like these to address people's concerns and questions directly and promptly - very impressed by that!

I'm also intrigued to see if the "community" will get behind this "Freespire" effort. It's worked for Red Hat / Fedora and Suse so far.

I think the best way for a distro to thrive these days is to offer choices to fit every need. Some don't mind distros which include proprietary code and will even pay money for these if they are guaranteed to "just work" out of the box as a result. Others don't mind proprietary code included but don't want to pay money for the product. Still others want a free product in all respects, both in financial cost terms and code wise. Still others want to "try before they buy" and need Live CDs, etc. And still others would use the product if only they could go in and fix that one annoying bug or feature that otherwise stops them from using the product.

I believe Linspire is making a good move by seeking to reach out to and satisfy all these different groups and needs within the Linux community. I hope the community responds positively in turn.