Linspire for free

Andrew Betts had the best intentions in the world when he developed "Freespire.” But the project has caused much confusion and misunderstanding in the marketplace. Many folks thought it was a free version of the Linspire operating system made by Linspire.

But it’s not. The project was comprised of various open source components taken from the freely available source repository for the Linspire operating system. And somehow it got submitted to www.distrowatch.com as a bona-fide Linux distribution. Without the consent of Mr.Betts.

Some were confused into thinking that if you just take out the proprietary licensed pieces of Linspire, you still have Linspire. But that’s not true. The total Linspire experience relies on proprietary components, such as mp3, Java, Flash, Quick Time, Windows Media, Real, and fonts.

Others tried 'Freespire' and used their experience of it to judge the Linspire product.

And worse yet, the Linspire support department was getting calls and emails from users who thought Freespire was their product.