10.10.07
Linspire 6.0 Released - Now with Patent Protection!
I’m not going to spend much time talking about a completely irrelevant distro, but for the sake of completeness of coverage…
San Diego, CA - October 10th, 2007 - Linspire, Inc., developer of the Linspire commercial and Freespire community desktop Linux operating systems and CNR.com, a free Linux software delivery service, today announced the immediate availability of Linspire 6.0, the latest commercial release of the desktop Linux operating system. Building on the best of open source software using Ubuntu as its base line, Linspire 6.0 adds licensed proprietary drivers, codecs, and software in its core distribution to provide a better user experience. The first commercial release from Linspire, Inc. in over two years, Linspire 6.0 continues its traditional focus on ease-of-use and bundles proprietary software where there are no viable open source alternatives, providing improved hardware, file type, and multimedia support, such as MP3, Real, Java, Flash, ATI, nVidia, WiFi, and many more. Linspire 6.0 is also the first commercial release to incorporate several technologies from Microsoft including Windows Media, True Type Fonts, as well as Open XML translators that allow OpenOffice to open and edit Microsoft Word .docx formatted documents.
Well, this should be a boon for the folks from Linspire, as it is well known throughout the Free World that the biggest impediment to GNU/Linux adoption has been an overwhelming fear of potential IP infringement suits from our friends in Redmond, in addition to the lack of "Times New Roman" by default. Right.
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.
Serenitude said,
October 10, 2007 at 5:25 pm
And are they using any GPLv3 code or programs?
Crevete said,
October 11, 2007 at 4:00 am
Codecs, Real, Java, Flash, ATI, nVidia, WiFi. Wow, if this was back in 1997 I would probably buy it.
Dan Laskowski said,
October 31, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Well if this is true then I will rename Ubuntu as Dabuntu and charge $50 for it and copyright it !!!
Dan