Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 30th Jun 2008 23:55 UTC, submitted by sjvn
In what seems like a battle of ants in a case full of lions, Practical Technology has learned that Xandros has bought Linspire. "In an announcement that was sent out today, June 30, to Linspire stockholders, CEO Larry Kettler wrote that the stockholders had decided to sell all of Linspire's assets. This deal specifically includes Linspire, Freespire, and the company's distribution agnostic CNR (Click 'N Run) desktop installation platform." Not everyone is very happy with this one, though.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
To be perfectly honest, both distributions did good things regarding ease of use and user friendliness in the past. At the time, they were the first to aim at Windows converts, they wanted their distros to be so easy that even granny shouldn't have problems. Even if I never used their distros for longer than a couple of hours, I liked the idea, I have always been in favour of "Linux for the masses"
Also, their releases were very stable, even if already out of date from day one.
The latest official Xandros release is based on Debian Sarge! (But there is a "developer" one based on Etch, rather easy to find).
As to Linspire, I helped them with their Microsoft litigation by becoming a lifetime member ($100).
Nobody has been more ignored than us lifetime members.
Did they ask us if we agreed when the signed an agreement with Microsoft? Did they ask when they moved to Ubuntu (instead of Debian)?
IMO, the latter was their undoing. Who needed yet another Ubuntu derivative? And what had been a rock-solid distribution suddenly became a problematic one.
When I complained in their forums about the total lack of respect for us lifetime members, my post was promptly deleted.
What now? If they can give some real contribution to the Linux community they'll get my support. Otherwise, good luck to them.