08.11.07
Linspire Keeps Crumbling. Might Xandros and Novell be Next in Line?
Internal affairs at Linspire seem to be worse than we used to believe. According to Linux Watch, it might not be just the company’s CEO who takes his business elsewhere. SJVN talks about a possible “executives exodus”. He tries to remain balanced, but the headline gives it all away.
In the last 12 months, Linspire has made moves that brought it both praise (such as its decision to base future versions of its Linuxes on Ubuntu and opening up of CNR to other distributions) and condemnation (its patent partnership with Microsoft) from the Linux user community.
As some people on the Web are already saying, one wonders if those executives received money from Microsoft. This seems like a classic case of striking deals and paying a rival to exit the market. It is illegal.
Microsoft was accused of buying out its competition. The accusation was back in 2006 when Microsoft attended the trial in Iowa. This Linspire story rings a certain bell. Microsoft settled to escape prosecution in Iowa, but it can be perceived as admission of guilt.
What’s worrying here is that Linspire’s deal is not all that different from Novell’s. Whether they share the same destiny or not, who knows? We might find out in the future. Here is a new essay which uses a parable to describe Novell’s relationship with Microsoft and the Free Software Foundation.
I’ve been trying to catch on and to understand what this thread’s all about (It started with R. Hovespian from Novell explaining why they needed a deal with MS). I thought, maybe I could try to summarize it all to understand - and maybe explain to others - what’s happening here, so I made up a tale of the whole situation
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Chakkaradeep said,
August 11, 2007 at 9:16 am
One cannot conclude that these people got money from Microsoft. Other than that I accept what is written here.
Linspire was good until they released Freespire and started *governing* the Community
.
It was like Novell, providing solutions to Enterprise Customers….and now its turned upside down for Linspire . If you start interacting with the Community and been with them, you can find how bad they are in keeping up their promises/development track and that has made the releases bad and still CNR isnt functional but Freespire 2.0 is released and Linspire 6.0 is released.
CNR was the *golden egg* for Linspire at early days but now there are many such *one click installation* and Linux Desktop Market has grown to large extent than Linspire thought.
One more thing too…Linspire failed to make a mark with OEMs like Dell/Lenovo/HP. They were taken back when these people finally announced that they are going to sell Linux Desktops !
Roy Schestowitz said,
August 11, 2007 at 9:34 am
About payments, I can refer you to some previous writeups (follow the references) which suggest that:
1. Linspire may have received $20 million (LinuxToday).
2. The transaction was made in a way which does not permit you to know where the money went (Groklaw).
3. Linux.com mentions something about undisclosed sums of money being paid.
All in all, there is more mystery than concrete figures. I usually operate upon the assumption that the world is not as honest as we wish to believe.
Chakkaradeep said,
August 11, 2007 at 10:42 am
>>All in all, there is more mystery than concrete figures. I usually operate upon >>the assumption that the world is not as honest as we wish to believe.
Fair enough