Bonum Certa Men Certa

Expire, Linspire

One Ballnux less to worry about

A trademark which Xandros bought appears to have just been thrown away. Tina has the details.

Linspire, the distribution originally launched as Lindows, is no more, says Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos.


This was actually insinuated a few days ago when SJVN had this to say:

Typaldos did not mention what these changes would mean for the future version of Linspire, the commercial version of Freespire. Sources close to the company indicated though that the Linspire distribution and brand will be replaced by the Xandros.


It seems likely, therefore, that the name "Linspire" won't be kicked around for much longer. The code and the artwork live on, so it's not a total loss. The covenant with Microsoft, on the brighter side, may be irrelevant now (IANAL).

The news may seem sad, but it's no reason to worry. Existing Linspire users will most likely move to GNU/Linux distributions that are not being 'taxed' by Microsoft.

We have been writing a lot about Linspire ever since it was acquired by Xandros [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. The 'community' version, which is not Free software, will stick around for a while, but it will be Debian based rather than Ubuntu based (Xandros cuts the 'middleman').

Xandros has announced a new version of Freespire, to be based on Debian's forthcoming Lenny release, expected this fall. Xandros says it plans to "consolidate" its various offerings on Debian, following its acquisition of Linspire.

Xandros acquired Linspire last month. Freespire is a free version of Linspire, and was previously based on Ubuntu.


Here is the press release.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
 
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025