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Windows Open Source Linux

Lindows Resurrected! Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 Linux Distros Now Available (betanews.com) 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the eight-year-hiatus dept.
BrianFagioli writes: About 16 years ago, a for-pay Linux distribution caused quite a stir all because of its name -- Lindows. Yes, someone actually thought kicking the billion dollar hornets nest that is Microsoft by playing off of the "Windows" name was a good idea. To be honest, from a marketing perspective, it was brilliant -- it got tons of free press. Microsoft eventually killed the Lindows name by use of money and the legal system, however. Ultimately, the Linux distro was renamed "Linspire." Comically, there was a Lindows Insiders program way before Windows Insiders!

After losing the Lindows name, the operating system largely fell out of the spotlight, and its 15 minutes of fame ended. After all, without the gimmicky name, it was hard to compete with free Linux distros with a paid OS. Not to mention, Richard Stallman famously denounced the OS for its non-free ways. The company eventually created a free version of its OS called Freespire, but by 2008, both projects were shut down by its then-owner, Xandros. Today, however, a new Linspire owner emerges -- PC/OpenSystems LLC. And yes, Lindows is rising from the grave -- as Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0!

"Today the development team at PC/Opensystems LLC is pleased to announce the release of Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0. While both contain common kernel and common utilities, they are targeted towards two different user bases. Freespire is a FOSS distribution geared for the general Linux community, making use of only open source components, containing no proprietary applications. This is not necessarily a limitation : through our software center and extensive repositories, Freespire users can install any application that they wish," says PC/OpenSystems LLC.
Back in 2003 the CEO of Lindows answered questions from Slashdot readers.

The first question was "Why oh why?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Lindows Resurrected! Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 Linux Distros Now Available More

Lindows Resurrected! Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 Linux Distros Now Available

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  • I just have one question.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @12:45PM (#55875521) Homepage

    Systemd or not?

  • Kill it with fire (Score:3)

    by DanDD ( 1857066 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @12:46PM (#55875523)

    Kill it with fire

  • This is truly a sign of the End Times.

  • "Windows" not owned by MS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by XanC ( 644172 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @12:58PM (#55875577)

    "Microsoft Windows" is. We shouldn't act as though the word "Windows" is owned by MS, even in a computing context. Windowed user interfaces using "windows" were around long before MS Windows.

    • Re:"Windows" not owned by MS (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2018 @01:14PM (#55875659)

      As a matter of fact, the court ruled against Microsoft's trademark claim. They bought the name Lindows for $20 million after losing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by lkcl ( 517947 )

      "Microsoft Windows" is. We shouldn't act as though the word "Windows" is owned by MS, even in a computing context. Windowed user interfaces using "windows" were around long before MS Windows.

      Exactly. I know someone who worked for Lindows^WLinspire at the time, and they told me that the reason why Microsoft settled (out of court) is because Lindows went "So Sue Us". Microsoft's Lawyers realised - and advised Microsoft accordingly - exactly as you surmise, XanC, that a "Window" is a generic term, and that their Trademark was not sustainable, and that it would be... how to put it best... "A Bad Idea" to let the courts decide (lawyer diplomatic speak for "Microsoft would lose"). Interestingly - f

  • Horrible OS (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06, 2018 @01:05PM (#55875605)

    I tried running it once. The idea of a commercially purchased PC with a pre-installed Linux system to me was a good trend.

    I got about 15 minutes of use, and then it asked me for a credit card in order to use GCC. So ... within another 10 seconds I was formatting that drive for a different distro.

  • Also avalible (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Winux, OS L and LSD.

  • I'd like to interject for a moment... (Score:4, Funny)

    by malditaenvidia ( 4015209 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @01:29PM (#55875717)
    What you're referring to as "Lindows" is, in fact, GNU/Lindows.

    • Re:I'd like to interject for a moment... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @01:39PM (#55875779)

      While the joke may sound funny at first, it is most definitely not true. Quoting Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundaton, about the licensing of Linspire:

      > No other GNU/Linux distribution has backslided so far away from freedom

      If Linspire's "pay for play" model included access to the relevant source code, under a "free" development license with access to source code, it could be considered compatible with most Linux software and business models. It does not: its support for prprietary projects and vendor lock-in is precisely what the GNU project and the FSF reject.

  • How many such distros are there now? Way over 1000 I'm sure.

    Devuan is the only distro that really interests me.

    • Devuan? Are you SURE? They pretended they were a fork of Debian, not a derivative. It took years to get their Jessie-based release out. Fast forward, they still didn't release anything more, and ... announced the Stretch-based release is coming. So suddenly, they become just-yet-another derivative of Debian. And what does it bring? Binaries not linked with libsystemd. That's it. No more, no less. In other words: completely useless, with very poor security support (unless someone dares Devuan has a better se

  • I smell a rat, or at leas a DOA idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wjcofkc ( 964165 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @01:41PM (#55875783)
    So the Freespire version lists a bunch of OSS. The commercial version lists a ton more software, almost all of it OSS. They have an awful lot of detailed testimonials for something that appears to have been release 5 days ago. Testimonials from the previous incarnation do not apply - this is a new animal. "Partnerships" - Uh huh. I need more info on what they classify as a "Partnership". Half of their "customers" link to nothing but a logo. I would be curious to know what Verizon and the US Navy are buying from them. For a company admitting (in the fine print) that they are a small consulting firm their service offerings seem pretty lofty. I could go on and on, nothing about this seems quite right or a even a good idea. I can't find any reviews. FOSS Bytes has a mention but all I learned is that it is an Ubuntu derivative, and that screen shot better be from a decade ago.

    https://fossbytes.com/lindows-linux-distro-back-linspire-7-0-and-freespire-3-0-released/

    I will give Freespire a spin but none of their marketing gives me a reason to be exited.

  • I mean, I hope they got paid. If they didn't get paid to run this blatant advertisement for snake oil, they got ripped off.

    A better story would've been about stuff that actually matters, like say "Today's package updates for Arch Linux" or something equally irrelevant as this "stupid idea from the 00s resurfaces" thing.

    • I mean, I hope they got paid. If they didn't get paid to run this blatant advertisement for snake oil, they got ripped off.

      Don't be so stupid. To me this is the most interesting story of today - it was entertaining to read about someone digging up a corpse of a discredited psycopath and trying to make a walking zombie out of it.

      You really found the article to read like an advertisement? Almost every word put me off.

  • No Xandros? (Score:3)

    by Monster_user ( 5075027 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @02:16PM (#55875923)
    Well, most of the customer base has found other distributions, but I preferred Xandros to Linspire. (Xandros bought Linspire/Lindows, and was the last owner I was aware of before today).

  • not Windows, The Doors - Come on Baby Run Linspire (Score:4, Funny)

    by ei4anb ( 625481 ) on Saturday January 06, 2018 @02:34PM (#55875971)
    https://youtu.be/V4-Z_nJvGsM [youtu.be] Come on Baby, Run Linspire!

  • Lindows, Linspire, and Freespire were excellent desktops. The layout was natural, the theme was beautiful, and they went out of their way to make damn sure that the fonts were rendered correctly.

    Lindows was excellent and it wasn't because of its gimmicky name. I'm the last one to respect gimmicks, but this was a truly good desktop OS with a lot of effort and technology put into it. They even developed their own control panel and administration system and did a good job of unifying the entire Linux deskto

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      And, everyone seems to have forgotten that Lindows was one of the first Linux distributions that had an app store that actually worked and was rich in variety with many commercial products offered.

  • Of course the combined distro would have to rename itself as "Freedows". Then they could claim was snack food for computers.
    {^_-}

  • Should it not be 6.0, as the last distro was 5.0 which I still have on CD
  • You can touch me now. I guess I'm one of the few. No idea where the license is or how I can prove I did, but I did buy one.
    I feel like Stef from UF.

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