DistroWatch has an interview with Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire. “We’ve learned a lot during the last five years, and two of the most important lessons were: 1) the open source and Linux community needs Linspire, and 2) Linspire needs the open source and Linux community. We’ve known the latter for a long time, and we started the Freespire project internally about two years ago.”
“the open source and Linux community needs Linspire”
I disagree but I guess there will always be the mum looking over your shoulder distro. Anybody think SUSE, Ubuntu, Mandriva dont do the job. I’ve always regarded linspire as a Windows users distro and not a Linux users distro.
Edited 2006-05-01 16:24
“the open source and Linux community needs Linspire”
I think it’s the other way around–and has always been true. Linspire has always needed the opensource movement. I see Linspire dieing without it, but I don’t see opensource dieing if Linspire disappeared tomorrow.
Case in point: NVu. Also LSongs, Click N Run (soon-to-be-OSS), and this:
http://go2web2.blogspot.com/2006/04/sneak-peak-at-ajaxos.html
“the open source and Linux community needs Linspire”
I think it’s the other way around–and has always been true. Linspire has always needed the opensource movement. I see Linspire dieing without it, but I don’t see opensource dieing if Linspire disappeared tomorrow.
While the FLOSS community may not need Linspire itself, I believe the community can learn some things from Linspire and distro’s like it. I remember the first time I installed 5-0. I remember thinking – “This IS an OS I can install on my mother’s computer and she will love it.” The flash tutorial that runs on first login by a user would really help some people get started. We can mock distro’s like Linspire from our Debian high towers (I love Debian and OpenBSD!) or whatever, but I think we miss the point. We now have many “user-friendly” distros. Always remember the OS/2 vs. Win95 shootout. OS/2 was technically far superior (still one of my favorites), but Windows 95 offered a much better “Out-of-Box” experience. Vi is wonderful (I am a supporter of the Vim project), but most people (i.e, not Geeks) want something like Gedit or Kate whether we like it or not.
I checked out kevincarmony.com, and found a “page me” link on the side. I thought – “wow, interesting a built in text message!” The form submits to “_vti_bin/shtml.dll/pageme.htm” He’s running IIS! I cannot believe that the CEO of Linspire is serving his homepage on a Windows box!
“I cannot believe that the CEO of Linspire is serving his homepage on a Windows box!”
Linspire is a desktop OS. Kevin has NEVER claimed to seek the server market, and openly talks about not going after this area. Also, Kevin is a pragmatist, not an idealist. Use what works. It’s very easy for me to believe that he uses MS technology. I’m not confirming that he does; I’m just saying it’s consistent with his previous positions. He seems to use open source for practical reasons, not idealistic ones. Not that that’s bad. Just my view of it.
Sure, and fair. But I would think that Linspire would use Linux. The world has already proven that it prefers Apache on Linux, and stats show that about 65% of websites run on it. I would just assume that he would want his website running on Linux and not his competitor’s OS.
Kevin informed that he had set up his home page many years ago, prior to even knowing what Linux was. He has not had the need to migrate it thus far; although he may do so in the future….I left him in open ended invitation to assist with any future migrations.
I think someone said he used frontpage to build the site. I think it got changed quickly cause it looks different now!
Remember that there are a lot of people out there, that want to use comps whithout knowing/learning how to do it :
I had a very entertaining phone call with my mother this morning…15 min to explain her the difference between files (blue things) and directories (yellow thingies) and how to right click on pictures files to preview them…
She has been using windows xp for years now and is an addict of Web-browsing and Email.
So, for this kind of user, one user-friendly (to excess) linux distro is a good thing…
Well, I definately hopes that freespire would still be around the unlikely day my parents would decide to forsake windows for a linux distro….
Edited 2006-05-01 17:09
“Freespire is not unlike Fedora in that it’s free and designed to be a community project”
Really? ok
“We had over 1,000 developers sign up for the Freespire developers list …. I’m going to be drawing from a pool of programmers that is 100 times greater than what Fedora and SUSE are pulling from”
A 100 times, that is too funny. Oh and anyone who signs up for the “mailing list” I think is subscribed to the devel lists unless you uncheck the box. Either way I havent seen a 1000 developers that is for sure. I am one of those 1000 that signed up for the list and I assure you I am NO developer.
oh and HE is going to be drawing from not freespire?
“but we will not have fixed released cycles because”
does this sound like a community or a dictator? who voted for not having fixed release cycles?
“but keeping everything current and fresh via CNR”
“CNR lets the OS stay current”
Linspires current release and CNR warehouse is anything but fresh, and current. I cant stop laughing to comment any more on this.
“The community will help decide some of this, but I think a stable build once a year is about as aggressive as it should get, with lots of activity going on in the CNR Warehouse.”
community or dictator here? So the distro will only be able to move as fast you’ll can keep up with CNR changes. Doesn’t sound too good.
“Again, we’ve been doing this for years with Linspire, and we’ve never completely blown anyone’s system up yet with some major bug.”
define blown up please!
More news that isnt news just to get some press and sell Linspire and CNR IMO.
Edited 2006-05-01 17:21
FOSS has killed a lot of shareware. Ubuntu marginalized Lindows in much the same way.
Linspire made a big hullabaloo about rebranding Netscape Composer under the name Nvu. Difference is, Firefox is substantially better than the Netscape core it was based on. In comparison, Nvu suffers from most of the same problems that made Composer a non-starter as a web development platform. If you run Linux, Bluefish, Kate or Quanta are much better options.
Ubuntu capitalizes on Debian, but it also contributes back to the Debian core by accelerating Sid’s development and providing Debian with enough competition to motivate them to improve their own product. Linspire merely repackages Debian stable with some licensed closed-source software and the notion that apt-get should require a credit card.
Morally, it’s only about two shades lighter than CherryOS in that they can’t try to pretend they did Debian/Ubuntu first or wrote most of it themselves.
Say what you will about Nvu, but it’s the only free web development program I recommend to newbies, whether on Windows or Linux. Its WYSIWYG interface is the simplest and most direct you can find. I for one am very thankful that they did take Composer and make it a separate program, because not only did they add a few new features, but they obviated the need for people to install the whole complicated Mozilla suite when all they wanted was Composer.
For Nvu alone, I am a fan of Linspire. I don’t use the distro myself, since on my system Suse runs much faster, but with its shiny eye candy and super simplicity I can understand why Linspire/Freespire might appeal to others.
As soon as I get some free time, I’m going to get Lsongs to compile on my Suse 10 setup (one of the only distros without a binary, sadly) and try it out. I’m not a big fan of the Amarok interface, and while Banshee is pretty nice, Lsongs looks even nicer! (Of course, how it performs is yet to be seen.)
Edited 2006-05-01 20:39
LSongs does not support m3u playlists, if that is of concern to you.
Its a good little os for people who just want things to work after an install with no hassle.
I’ve installed it on my box and am using it every day. The packages are a little older but shit man it does everything I ask and honestly thats all I ask.
I’ve moved most of my crucial development stuff over and its working pretty darn well. I’m still dual booting with XP but I find I spend most of my time using Linspire.
I think I’ll be damn happy when they upgrade to KDE 3.5 in their next release!
…is making greeting cards out of a $44.99 box. Windows has us beat hands-down at this, I’m afraid…
I checked out Netcraft. They report kevincarmony.com is powered by Apache on Linux, as of May 1.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=kevincarmony.com
I really don’t understand why there are so many people who are so negative towards linspire.
It’s like there’s this total lack of understanding that it might be worth a few bucks for people to have:
1) Proprietary drivers/codecs/etc out of the box
2) CNR with software that they know works together
Personally, I like to tinker, so Gentoo is for me, but I have no trouble understanding that there is a market for it, and I really can’t see what they are supposed to be harming?
They are charging for the fact that they did some quality assurance on the (slightly old) software they are serving over their newbie-friendly delivery mechanism. I think that’s great. I also think it’s very much in tune with the way the GPL is supposed to work.
As for the people who are so upset that it costs money to use CNR: Don’t use it. If you are comfortable using apt-get to install your apps and mess around with config files (as am I), then I am sure Carmony will shake your hand and congratulate you for that.
I sense that it’s some kind of idea that “open source is supposed to be entirely free as in beer”, but as I understand it, not even Stallman thinks that.
I think linspire is well within the spirit of open source, and if they can do something positive for linux adoption, it’ll benefit us all in the long run by making it less acceptable to make windows-only software and websites.
“It’s like there’s this total lack of understanding”
no trust me we understand just fine
“they did some quality assurance”
No they actually do very little quality assurance for warehouse products. Here is a quote from the CNR warehouse “Linspire.com does not provide support for products listed in the CNR Warehouse”
“on the (slightly old) software”
That should be in some cases very old and very insecure software. Where are all those security updates that occur on other distros and SHOULD be occuring on Linspire?
Nobody said we demand free beer, but it sure is nice to get free beer.
RedHat certainly isn’t free beer but man they sure are good community members.
All distros can do something positive for linux adoption. Could it be linspire users attitude that only linspire is viable desktop choice that gets people upset. Most people dont like it when others brag about themselves and make themselves out to be the savior of linux IMO.
“Linspire.com does not provide support for products listed in the CNR Warehouse”
I believe this issue has been discussed, at length, in other (past) articles posted here on OSNews.
While Linspire does not provide ‘technical’ support for the various products in their CNR Warehouse, they DO provide teh proper level of support to ensure that the CNR items will install & operate properly.
As an example, PYSOL has been compiled to install from CNR to the Linspire user’s system. Linspire will not provide support for the functionality of the program. If there are bugs in the program, Linspire isn’t responsible for correcting the problem. They’ll only step in if it’s a CNR/installation issue.
PS: I only used PYSOL as an example, and because I believe it’s a well-known title.
As I stated, this has been discussed in the past, so it’s not an issue, IMO.
Talk to Marby about Audacity from the CNR warehouse, pelly.
Looks like they do support installation from CNR but not direct third-party support. Fair enough.
Here’s a quote from the Linspire site:
Installation and Configuration: This includes assistance with Linspire pre-sales questions, product and service acquisition, downloading, installation, configuration and setup.
That sounds like they’ll support CNR downloads & installs to me. If they aren’t doing it then they need to be reminded (and hammered) that they promise to.
To read the entire page, go to http://www.linspire.com and search the knowledgebase for, “cnr support,” then choose the link for, “Does Linspire provide technical support?” Tried to put a link in here, but it was a real mess.
it does sound good…. sounds almost too good huh?