Friday, December 29, 2017

Linspire and Freespire FAQ

Since our Christmas sneak peek many users and future customers have been asking us questions about Linspire and Freespire. How did we acquire the trademarks? How will we differ from Linspire Inc? How come Freespire.org is still operational but doesn’t offer any downloads? What’s the difference between our approach and Linspire Inc. and the now defunct Xandros? What’s the fate of Black Lab Linux going to be?

Q) How did we acquire the Linspire / Freespire trademarks? 

We acquired them through Bridgeways.ca before they went out of business. We now own them and it has been our decision since to market them.

Q) How will we differ from Linspire Inc? 

We will differ in a few ways. One way we will NOT differ is that Linspire is 1st and foremost a commercial product. Linspire Inc. required that you purchase a license yearly to get updates and access to CNR. We will not enforce any such requirement. Once the initial purchase is made, the product is yours. We will not lock you out of updates or the software center. But, you are locked into the version purchased; updates until the EOL will be available, for that version. When the new major release is available you will not be able to get the it unless you purchase a license / licenses.

Q) How come there is a Freespire.org and how does that relate to our free download of Freespire? 

 It’s not related to us in anyway; it’s related to Linspire Inc. The reason that domain is still registered and used is due to an ongoing fight between Kevin Carmony and Michael Robertson. Kevin Carmony brought to light some of the alleged shady dealings of Mr. Robertson and had registered Freespire.com (now defunct). I will not comment on or make any assumptions about the legitimacy of the claims and we have tried to no avail to get the domain. We are stepping up our efforts to get the domain.

Q) What is our approach vs Linspire Inc. and Xandros? 

We will be focusing on working with Canonical and Canonical’s core Ubuntu product; we will make improvements on that base and fork from it when we feel it’s necessary. Linspire and Freespire will NOT be just remastered Ubuntu spins. However, Ubuntu is the recognized community desktop leader, and there are hundreds of thousands of apps targeted to the Ubuntu desktop, so basing our new product on this solid application base just makes sense. We will be targeting the new LinspireOS toward the markets where we are undisputed leaders : HPC, education, the enterprise and specialized desktop services. Our release is based on the XFCE desktop; its panel layouts and graphics will not change.

Q) Will we offer the legacy Linspire and Lindows ISO’s? 

No. We do not have any permission to redistribute the classic ISOs. And they would be essentially useless.

Q) What happens to Black Lab Linux? 

Nothing at all. Black Lab Linux is a separate entity with a totally different development team. Linspire will collaborate with the BL development team when there are common goals. They will offer their version of a community-based FOSS operating system.

Q) How many flavors of Linspire will there be? 

As previously stated, there will be no other desktop environments but XFCE. Linspire will come in 3 different flavors : LinspireOS Desktop which is a general desktop OS for home users, business users, students etc. Linspire HPC which is our high performance computing platform targeted toward users who need a very powerful computing environment for high end development, CAD and HD graphics. Linspire Embedded which will be targeted to users who want to repurpose older hardware (5+ yr old desktops, notebooks), IoT and existing ChromeOS users who want an upgrade path for their older and unsupported Chromebooks.

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PC/OpenSystems LLC. is a small consulting firm and the only Linux retailer in NC for Linux PC's and custom systems located in Franklinton North Carolina. We specialize in hardware repair and we resell custom Linux based computers, software maintenance as well as custom application development.