03.21.08

Freespire: Conquered by Microsoft, Fails to Work

Posted in GNU/Linux, Linspire, Microsoft, Novell, Open XML, Search at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Feels like redeeming the wounded out of its misery

One company which we rarely keep our eyes on is Linspire. Its sins against its supplier, namely volunteer coders, are just as bad as Novell’s, if not worse.

Freespire is not as free as its name wishes to suggest. This was actually covered before. It’s only make belief. In a couple of quick new posts we find out about the ‘joys’ of Freespire. Witness the pleasant sight of ‘Microsoft Linux’.

That’s right, this was the first evidence of the Microsoft deal that I had found. Most distributions have Google as their default search, but this is the first I had come across with Live search. Thankfully, this could be changed to Google, my search engine of choice.

Another result of the Microsoft patent deal was a converter for the Microsoft’s OOXML document format. Really, the format in Office 2007, “.docx” is a partial integration of OOXML, but it is nice to have the format just in case someone sends me a file with the .docx extension, although the chance that I will receive a .docx file is minimal at best. Most people still send .doc files for the purpose of compatibility.

A day afterwards came this rant from the same person.

As I wrote just several hours ago, I have made the move (temporarily) to Freespire.

It looks like that stay will be short-lived.

The CNR client is not working on my computer. I go to CNR, with the CNR client running, click “Install Now”… and I get redirected to a page that says something along the lines of “Upgrade CNR client to install software.”

It’s reassuring to see — albeit with a degree of sadness for innocent developers who pay the price for ignorant managers — that Linspire is unlikely to survive. This comes to show and to teach many others that those who sell out to Microsoft choose the grave, not the advantage. We continue to boycott Linspire, but it’s a shame that developers and users get punished, not just the managers who need to be held accountable (Kevin Carmony ran away). █

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2 Comments

CoolGuy said,

March 21, 2008 at 9:32 am

Coming are the days when SuSE will default to Live search
Gopal said,

March 21, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Klikit Linux – being developed by the breakaway group (after the MS deal) from Linspire/Freespire is now at RC stage.
see http://www.klikit-linux.com

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