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Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash, is a Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. Linspire's focus is on ease-of-use for home, school and business users. Linspire strives to be easy for the average person to use rather than catering to the perceived demands of a power user.

As of April 21 2006, the most recent stable release of Linspire is version 5.1.427 (Linspire Five-O, which includes KDE 3.3.2, Xorg 6.9.0, GCC 3.3.5 and version 2.6.14 of the Linux kernel.

Linspire is available in two editions. The basic retail edition costs US$49.95 and the "CNR Edition" $89.95, which includes a one year subscription to the CNR Gold service. The OEM versions can be obtained for 25.99$CAD.

History


Michael Robertson founded Linspire around August 2001 and continues to serve as Chairman. As of June 15 2005, Kevin Carmony serves as President and CEO.

The first public release of Linspire was version 1.0, released in late 2001.

Linspire, Inc had the initial goal of developing a Linux-based operating system capable of running major Microsoft Windows applications as well. It based its Windows compatibility on Wine. The company later abandoned its initial approach in favor of making Linux applications easy to download, install and use. They achieved this using an application called Click and Run (CNR), a program initially based on Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool, providing an easy-to-use interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee.

Linspire uses names of fish (as found around San Diego, California, where Linspire's headquarters are located) as code names for their products:

* Coho - Code name for Linspire/LindowsOS 4.5.
* Marlin - Code name for Linspire Five-0 (5.0 and 5.1) and Freespire 1.0
* Skipjack - Code name for Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0, which are both slated to be released 1st Quarter 2007. Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0 will have a new open-source version of the CNR client.
* Sanddab - Code name for the edition to come out after Freespire 2.0/Linspire 6.0

Open source support


Linspire, Inc. has contributed millions of dollars in direct funds and contributed code to several open source projects.

The company sponsors many open-source projects and events including the Gaim and Kopete instant messaging clients, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the ReiserFS file system, the Nvu WYSIWYG website editor, and the [http://www.kde-apps.org/ KDE-Apps.org] and [http://www.kde-look.org/ KDE-Look.org] websites. In the past, Linspire contributed over $500,000 to the Wine project and also hosted several Linux and open source events such as the annual Desktop Linux Summit, Debconf and KDE Developers Conference.

Linspire is the lead maintainer for projects such as Lsongs (an iTunes equivalent) and Lphoto. With very few exceptions, all code that is developed by Linspire is contributed back to the free software community.

CNR


Linspire's CNR Service allows users "unrestricted access to software stored in the CNR Warehouse". The service allows users to install available applications using a single click. CNR also includes Click and buy (CNB) which contains many commercial proprietary software applications available to members at a discounted rate. Currently CNR has over 2,200 different products, ranging from very simple applications to major commercial proprietary works such as Win4Lin and StarOffice.

Linspire offers two different pricing options for their annual subscription-based CNR service:

* CNR Service (basic) : The basic CNR Service, now available for free (formerly $20 per year), allows users to install applications using a single click.

* CNR Gold Service : Like the basic service, the Gold Service, available for about $50 per year, comes with additional extras such as discounts on commercial Linux applications (like StarOffice, Win4Lin, Cedega and MyBooksPro) as well as other services and features. Proponents of the service claim that one software discount practically pays for the cost of CNR Gold Service.

Amid rumors that Linspire was going to port the CNR service to the Ubuntu distribution, the company announced plans on April 24 2006 to release CNR under a free software/open source license. It could then be used by other Linux distributions. The release of the free/open-source CNR client is planned to coincide with the release of Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0, both of which will include the free/open-source CNR client. (http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_Roadmap)

Language support and international editions


Linspire sponsors the IRMA (Internationalization Resource Management Application) project, which allows people from around the world to assist in the translation of open source software. IRMA supports over 50 languages with over 2,500 translators. (http://irma.linspire.com/numbers/translator_stats.php) IRMA allows Linspire to be available in many languages, with over 90% of Linspire applications translated in most Western European languages as of August 2006 and over 30% of translations completed in around 20 other languages. (http://irma.linspire.com/numbers/ISOtranslation_stats.php)

Given the orientation of Linspire towards ease of use, and the consumer desktop, the creation of fully translated international editions is crucial for its successful adoption. The international editions complement the KDE interface in the local language with translated multimedia tutorials, documentation, packaging, installation procedures, support for local ISPs, etc., and are available in the form of boxed packages to be sold at retail stores, or OEM licenses for System Builders.

Criticism


Charging for what some view as simply a modified version of Debian, similar to MEPIS, Xandros, Progeny, and Libranet, has once again attracted criticism. Others disagree and argue that the Linspire OS is considerably different from Debian and most other Linux distributions, because it includes proprietary software on its installation CD, such as Adobe Reader, proprietary drivers and support for MP3, DVD, QuickTime, Sun Java, Adobe Flash, Real Media, Windows Media. Some of these licensed, 3rd-party products include fees to the license holder which are paid for and legally licensed by Linspire.

Linspire employs the controversial practice of giving users the choice to always run programs as root, which can potentially nullify the traditional UNIX security system. During the installation, users are encouraged not to run as root but to set up user accounts. However, unlike most distributions, it is not mandated, with the choice being left up to the user.

Critics maintain that an intruder managing to gain control of a Linspire system can do anything he wants to the computer, such as installing spyware and loading kernel modules to mask the intrusion, and therefore believe that the default should be to force the creation of user accounts. Moreover, with Linspire being a distribution aimed for generally less advanced home and business users, they may not be able to make informed choices about their system security. Proponents of Linux also put a high value on the education of users, and find that it is important for everybody to learn about the traditional and reliable security models based on limited users, and feel that a weakening of this knowledge in the general Linux user community could lead to exploitation by specifically targeted malware. Linspire, on the other hand, takes a strong view that users should be free to choose how to run their computers, not others. Therefore, they educate and discourage users from running as root, but do not take away the freedom of users to choose to do so if they wish.

It should also be noted that the default Linspire installation does not include network services. There is also a strict firewall installed and enabled by default, which blocks everything except for TCP and UDP port 22 (i.e. SSH). On the other hand, without the security barriers of separate user accounts, even network-connected client programs pose highly increased risks, especially with the increased popularity of peer-to-peer type networking applications.

Freespire


In August 2005, a distribution LiveCD based on Linspire's source pools named Freespire hit the web by accident. This distribution was created by Andrew Betts and was not produced or released by Linspire Inc. Freespire was confused by some users to be an actual product from Linspire; on the back of the generated publicity, Linspire, Inc. offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9 2005, thereby greatly increasing its userbase.

On April 24 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire". This follows the model of community-oriented releases by Red Hat and Novell in the form of Fedora Core and openSUSE respectively. Freespire is a community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, and includes previously proprietary elements from Linspire, such as the CNR Client, while other elements, which Linspire itself 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.

On August 7, 2006, Freespire 1.0 was released three weeks ahead of schedule. [http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?t=723]
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