[Fsf-friends] Dont be proud of freedom if its through linspire

[Hiran Venugopalan]

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 at 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
678006 |
| 09846951870 | hiran.v at gmail.com |