NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Linspire

Linspire, previously known as LindowsOS (also Lin---s, pronounced as Lindash), is a Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux. Linspire's focus is on ease-of-use for home, school and business users. Linspire strives to be easy for the average person to use rather than catering to the perceived demands of a power user. New Linspire Logo File links The following pages link to this file: Linspire ... This is a screenshot of a copyrighted website, video game graphic, computer program graphic, television broadcast, or film. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet. ... The term software company could be applied to; a) a company that produces software or b) a company that distributes software from a third party or c) a company that provides services for software. ... A software developer is a programmer who is concerned with one or more facets of the software development process, a somewhat broader scope of computer programming. ... Linux refers to any Unix-like computer operating system which uses the Linux kernel. ... April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... Graphical overview of a monolithic kernel A monolithic kernel defines a high-level virtual interface over the hardware, with a set of primitives or system calls to implement operating system services such as process management, concurrency, and memory management in several modules that run in supervisor mode. ... The user interface is the part of a system exposed to users. ... For the stock ticker symbol, see 4Kids Entertainment. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... This article is about free software as defined by the sociopolitical free software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ... Proprietary software is software that has restrictions on using and copying it, usually enforced by a proprietor. ... A Linux distribution is a Unix-like operating system comprising the Linux kernel and other assorted free software/open-source software, and possibly proprietary software. ... Debian, created by the Debian Project, is a widely used distribution of free software developed through the collaboration of volunteers from around the world. ...

As of April 21, 2006, the most recent stable release of Linspire is version 5.1.427 (Linspire Five-O), which includes KDE 3.3.2, Xorg 6.9.0, GCC 3.3.5 and version 2.6.14 of the Linux kernel.^[1] April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the stock ticker symbol, see 4Kids Entertainment. ... The XOrg Foundation Open Source Public Implementation of X11 (the XOrg Server) is the official reference implementation of the X Window System. ... The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of programming language compilers produced by the GNU Project. ... The Linux kernel is a Unix-like operating system kernel. ...

Linspire is available in two editions. The basic retail edition costs US$49.95 and the "CNR Edition" $89.95, which includes a one year subscription to the CNR Gold service.^[2] The OEM versions can be obtained for 25.99$CAD.^[3] ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 3. ...

History

Michael Robertson founded Linspire around August 2001 and continues to serve as Chairman. As of June 15 2005, Kevin Carmony serves as President and CEO.^[4] Michael Robertson (born 1967) is the founder and former CEO of MP3. ... Kevin Carmony (born 1959) is the President and CEO of the Linspire corporation. ...

The first public release of Linspire was version 1.0, released in late 2001.^[5]

Linspire, Inc had the initial goal of developing a Linux-based operating system capable of running major Microsoft Windows applications as well. It based its Windows compatibility on Wine. The company later abandoned its initial approach in favor of making Linux applications easy to download, install and use. They achieved this using an application called Click and Run (CNR), a program initially based on Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool, providing an easy-to-use interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee. An operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary operating systems by Microsoft. ... Wine is a project which aims to allow a PC running a Unix-like operating system and the X Window System to execute programs originally written for Microsoft Windows. ... Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT, is a package management system used by Debian and its derivatives. ...

Linspire uses names of fish (as found around San Diego, California, where Linspire's headquarters are located) as code names for their products: A giant grouper at the Georgia Aquarium Fish are aquatic vertebrates that are typically cold-blooded; covered with scales, and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins. ... Nickname: Americas Finest City Location of San Diego within San Diego County Coordinates: Country United States State California County San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders City Attorney Michael Aguirre City Council Scott Peters Kevin Faulconer Toni Atkins Tony Young Brian Maienschein Donna Frye Jim Madaffer Ben Hueso Area - City 963. ...

Litigation

In 2002 Microsoft Corporation sued Lindows, Inc. claiming the name "Lindows" constituted a trademark infringement on "Windows". As early as 2002, a court rejected Microsoft's claims, stating that Microsoft had used the term "windows" to describe graphical user interfaces before the Windows product was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox and Apple Computer many years before.^[6] Microsoft kept seeking retrial, but in February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims.^[7] At this point, Microsoft offered to settle the case. As part of the licensing settlement, Microsoft paid an estimated $24 million cash (for a case which Microsoft itself brought), and Lindows, Inc. transferred the Lindows trademark to Microsoft and changed its name to Linspire, Inc. Microsoft v. ... Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), (founded 1975), headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, is the worlds largest software company (with over 50,000 employees in various countries, as of May 2004). ... Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) is an American document management company, which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies. ... Apple Inc. ...

Open source support

Linspire, Inc. has contributed millions of dollars in direct funds and contributed code to several open source projects.^{[citation needed]}

The company sponsors many open-source projects and events including the Gaim and Kopete instant messaging clients, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the ReiserFS file system, the Nvu WYSIWYG website editor, and the KDE-Apps.org and KDE-Look.org websites. In the past, Linspire contributed over $500,000 to the Wine project^{[citation needed]} and also hosted several Linux and open source events such as the annual Desktop Linux Summit, Debconf and KDE Developers Conference. Buddylist of Gaim 1. ... Kopete is a multi-protocol instant messenger, supporting Jabber, ICQ, AIM, Gadu-Gadu, GroupWise, IRC, .NET Messenger Service, SMS, and Yahoo! Messenger. ... Firefox redirects here. ... ReiserFS is a general-purpose, journaled computer file system designed and implemented by a team at Namesys led by Hans Reiser who is referred to as the projects Benevolent Dictator for Life. ... Nvu (pronounced N-view or en-vee-you depending on your preference and/or native language) is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko 1. ... WYSIWYG (IPA Pronunciation [] or []), is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product. ... The Desktop Linux Summit is an annual conference with a programme of speakers addressing desktop Linux issues. ... Debconf is the yearly conference where developers of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system meet to discuss issues around the further development of the system. ...

Linspire is the lead maintainer for projects such as Lsongs (an iTunes equivalent) and Lphoto.^[8] With very few exceptions, all code that is developed by Linspire is contributed back to the free software community.^{[citation needed]} Lsongs is a music management/media player for Linux. ... iTunes is a digital media player application, introduced by Apple Computer on January 10, 2001 at Macworld Expo in San Francisco,[1] for playing and organizing digital music and video files. ... Lphoto is an image editor. ... // The free software community is also called the open source community or the Linux community. ...

CNR

Linspire's CNR Service allows users "unrestricted access to software stored in the CNR Warehouse".^[9] The service allows users to install available applications using a single click. CNR also includes Click and buy (CNB) which contains many commercial proprietary software applications available to members at a discounted rate. Currently CNR has over 2,200 different products, ranging from very simple applications to major commercial proprietary works such as Win4Lin and StarOffice.^[10] Image File history File links This is a nicer looking version of the old Clicknrun. ... Proprietary software is software that has restrictions on using and copying it, usually enforced by a proprietor. ... Win4Lin is a software application for Linux which allows a user to run a copy of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 or XP applications on their desktop. ... StarOffice is Sun Microsystems commercial office suite software package. ...

Linspire offers two different pricing options for their annual subscription-based CNR service:

Amid rumors that Linspire was going to port the CNR service to the Ubuntu distribution, the company announced plans on April 24, 2006 to release CNR under a free software/open source license. It could then be used by other Linux distributions. The release of the free/open-source CNR client is planned to coincide with the release of Freespire 2.0 and Linspire 6.0, both of which will include the free/open-source CNR client.^[12] StarOffice is Sun Microsystems commercial office suite software package. ... Win4Lin is a software application for Linux which allows a user to run a copy of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 or XP applications on their desktop. ... Cedega (formerly known as WineX) is TransGaming Technologies proprietary fork of Wine (from when the license of Wine wasnt the LGPL but the X11 license), which is designed specifically for running games written for Microsoft Windows under GNU/Linux. ... Ubuntu (IPA pronunciation: ) (pronounced like ooh-boon-too) is a widely used Linux distribution predominantly targeted at personal computers. ... April 24 is the 114th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (115th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about Free Software as defined by the sociopolitical Free Software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ...

Language support and international editions

Linspire sponsors the IRMA (Internationalization Resource Management Application) project, which allows people from around the world to assist in the translation of open source software. IRMA supports over 50 languages with over 2,500 translators.^[13] IRMA allows Linspire to be available in many languages, with over 90% of Linspire applications translated in most Western European languages as of August 2006 and over 30% of translations completed in around 20 other languages.^[14]

Given the orientation of Linspire towards ease of use, and the consumer desktop, the creation of fully translated international editions is crucial for its successful adoption. The international editions complement the KDE interface in the local language with translated multimedia tutorials, documentation, packaging, installation procedures, support for local ISPs, etc., and are available in the form of boxed packages to be sold at retail stores, or OEM licenses for System Builders.^{[citation needed]}

Criticism

Charging for what some view as simply a modified version of Debian, similar to MEPIS, Xandros, Progeny, and Libranet, has once again attracted criticism.^{[citation needed]} Others disagree and argue that the Linspire OS is considerably different from Debian and most other Linux distributions, because it includes proprietary software on its installation CD, such as Adobe Reader, proprietary drivers and support for MP3, DVD, QuickTime, Sun Java, Adobe Flash, Real Media, Windows Media.^{[citation needed]} Some of these licensed, 3rd-party products include fees to the license holder which are paid for and legally licensed by Linspire. MEPIS Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution (with the next update being based on Ubuntu, which is itself based on Debian) founded by Warren Woodford which can be installed onto a hard disk or run as a LiveCD. // History MEPISs first official release was May 10, 2003. ... Xandros is both the name of a line of Linux distributions and Xandros Corporation, the company which creates them. ... Progeny 3. ... In computing, Libranet is a Linux distribution that is based on Debian GNU/Linux. ... Adobe Acrobat Reader running on Debian Adobe Acrobat was the first software to support Adobe Systems Portable Document Format. ...

Linspire employs the controversial practice of giving users the choice to always run programs as root, which can potentially nullify the traditional UNIX security system. During the installation, users are encouraged not to run as root but to set up user accounts. However, unlike most distributions, it is not mandated, with the choice being left up to the user. On many computer operating systems, superuser is the term used for the special user account that is controlled by the system administrator. ...

Critics maintain that an intruder managing to gain control of a Linspire system can do anything he wants to the computer, such as installing spyware and loading kernel modules to mask the intrusion, and therefore believe that the default should be to force the creation of user accounts. Moreover, with Linspire being a distribution aimed for generally less advanced home and business users, they may not be able to make informed choices about their system security. Proponents of Linux also put a high value on the education of users, and find that it is important for everybody to learn about the traditional and reliable security models based on limited users, and feel that a weakening of this knowledge in the general Linux user community could lead to exploitation by specifically targeted malware.^{[citation needed]} Linspire, on the other hand, takes a strong view that users should be free to choose how to run their computers, not others. Therefore, they educate and discourage users from running as root, but do not take away the freedom of users to choose to do so if they wish. A large number of toolbars, some added by spyware, overwhelm an Internet Explorer session. ...

It should also be noted that the default Linspire installation does not include network services. There is also a strict firewall installed and enabled by default, which blocks everything except for TCP and UDP port 22 (i.e. SSH). On the other hand, without the security barriers of separate user accounts, even network-connected client programs pose highly increased risks, especially with the increased popularity of peer-to-peer type networking applications. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Computer port (software). ... In computing, Secure Shell or SSH is a set of standards and an associated network protocol that allows establishing a secure channel between a local and a remote computer. ...

Freespire

In August 2005, a distribution LiveCD based on Linspire's source pools named Freespire hit the web by accident.^[15] This distribution was created by Andrew Betts and was not produced or released by Linspire Inc. Freespire was confused by some users to be an actual product from Linspire; on the back of the generated publicity, Linspire, Inc. offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9, 2005, thereby greatly increasing its userbase.^{[citation needed]} Freespire is a community-driven Linux distribution which is composed entirely of Free and open source software, while providing users the choice of including proprietary software including multimedia codecs, device drivers and application software as they see fit. ... Gnoppix 0. ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

On April 24, 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire".^[16] This follows the model of community-oriented releases by Red Hat and Novell in the form of Fedora Core and openSUSE respectively. Freespire is a community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, and includes previously proprietary elements from Linspire, such as the CNR Client, while other elements, which Linspire itself licenses but does not own, like the Windows Media Audio compatibility libraries, remain closed-source. Consequently there are two versions of Freespire, one with the closed source libraries, and one, called Freespire OSS Edition, that includes only open-source components. April 24 is the 114th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (115th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Red Hat, Inc. ... Novell was also the name of a road bicycle racing team. ... Fedora Core is an RPM-based Linux distribution, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. ... Screenshot of SUSE Linux 10. ...

On August 7, 2006, Freespire 1.0 was released three weeks ahead of schedule. [2]

References

^ Linspire at DistroWatch
^ Linspire products. Retrieved on 2006-05-08.
^ Tigerdirect Canada.
^ Michael's Minute 6/15/05. Retrieved on 2005-06-15.
^ John C. Dvorak of PC Mag on Lindows. Retrieved on 2006-05-02.
^ Microsoft's Appeal in 'Lindows' Case Rejected. internetnews.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-02.
^ Lindows wins in US court Microsoft ruling. Silicon.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-02.
^ Open source projects sponsored by Linspire. Retrieved on 2006-04-27.
^ What is CNR?. Linspire, Inc.. Retrieved on 2006-04-27.
^ CNR Warehouse - catalogue of software titles downloadable via CNR. Retrieved on 2006-04-27.
^ Linspire Does Away with Annual Fee for "Click 'N Run" Linux Service. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.
^ http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_Roadmap
^ http://irma.linspire.com/numbers/translator_stats.php
^ http://irma.linspire.com/numbers/ISOtranslation_stats.php
^ Explanation of "SquiggleOS" release. Retrieved on 2006-05-04.
^ Newsforge: Linspire launches Freespire, open-sources CNR. Retrieved on 2006-04-25.

class="preview" id="pv141"> 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 2 is the 122nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (123rd in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 2 is the 122nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (123rd in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 2 is the 122nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (123rd in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... August 30 is the 242nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (243rd in leap years), with 123 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ...

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