06.03.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Linspire, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, xandros at 4:23 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Potentially controversial remarks from a manager at Xandros
AFTER its patent deal with Microsoft, Novell became a .NET-oriented company that sells “patent royalties” (Microsoft’s name for SUSE vouchers). But another notable company that signed such a patent deal is Xandros, which later consumed another, namely Linspire. Xandros too has a history of leaning towards .NET (at the expense of GNU/Linux) after a deal with Microsoft.
Oddly enough, Xandros is assuming that Linspire users are Windows users (Linspire is now part of Xandros) and its representatives are publicly saying that they hide Presto's identity as Linux. It’s almost as though they are shy or embarrassed by the very software they exploit without pushing much (or anything) upstream.
Timothy from The Register has just caught another priceless quote from a Xandros manager:
While Xandros is not going to turn down a sale for any of its products, and it fully supports what it sells, just like other Linux distributors. Jordan Smith, product marketing manager for OEM solutions at Xandros, is perfectly frank about what Xandros is doing. “We are kind of getting away from being a Linux company, and we are more interested in presenting a user experience,” explains Smith. “Users don’t care about Linux.”
Truth be told, Xandros long ago moved away from its focus as a “[GNU/]Linux company”. Here are some of its press releases from recent days:
i. Xandros Discusses Application Stores and Ecosystems
Xandros has announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.
ii. Xandros Creates Enhanced User Experience for Netbook Users With Moblin V2
Xandros today announced it is developing software products based on the recently released Moblin Version 2 project for Intel® Atom™ processor-based platforms. The new version of Moblin will enable Xandros to provide customizations with advanced Internet, media, social networking and graphics capabilities for the ASUS Eee PC. A turnkey Xandros software solution employing new Moblin v2 technologies will be demonstrated for the first time at the Intel booth at Computex, Taipei, Taiwan, June 2-6, 2009.
Accompanying new articles:
i. Xandros Discusses Application Stores and Ecosystems at JavaOne
Xandros today announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.
ii. Asus unveils all-band 3G netbook running Google Android
It’s easy to see why Asus would continue to seek alternatives to Windows. Google’s Android is free, which helps in the ultra price-competitive netbook segment pioneered by Asus. It’s also economical on resources, and offers one click access to Google Apps online; handy if your netbook has next to no storage space.
[...]
Keeping its bets open, Asus also demo’d a second version of the SnapDragon netbook running Xandros Linux.
Other new coverage:
i. Xandros ‘Presto: No rabbit in this hat
Xandros has announced that key staff will present a birds-of-a-feather session on using standard Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies to maximize maintainability on Application Stores projects at the Sun JavaOne conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, June 2, 2009. With the explosion of new mobile computing platforms, from smartphones to netbooks to e-book readers, an application store is no longer optional. It is a key contributor to the success of a platform.
ii. Budget travel tech - stay connected on the move for less
I popped an extra 16Gb in the MMC/SD slot in the side, so I have a bit of room to stash personal files without having to worry about partitions on the SSD drive. So, the hardware is good, but the included Xandros OS failed to live up to expectations, so the time had finally arrived for me to start earning my place on this esteemed writing team, and properly get my head around Linux.
Xandros is still selling GNU/Linux, so it would be an exaggeration to say that Xandros, like ASUS, is moving away from GNU/Linux. It does show, however, the negative impact of Microsoft deals. Xandros is not respected among GNU/Linux users. █
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05.30.09
Posted in Courtroom, Deception, Finance, Fraud, GNU/Linux, Linspire, SCO, UNIX, xandros at 7:37 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Criminal charges pressed against William Roseman; SCO hearing canceled and Chapter 7 possibly imminent
IT IS interesting to find just how small a world we live in. Using the Internet, embarrassing news about people would escape almost nobody who pays close attention.
Is it true that one of the key people at Xandros became a mayor? Is it true that he’s accused of third-degree theft? Is this the same Xandros? Yes, it is. A plurality of sources can verify this.
Carlstadt Mayor William Roseman and his former spouse, Lori Lewin, are accused of stealing medical and prescription plan benefits from the borough over the last several years, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.
A grand jury indicted the two on charges of third-degree conspiracy to commit theft by deception, third-degree theft by deception and second-degree official misconduct today, May 29.
[....]
Roseman is the co-founder, vice president of finance and director of Xandros, Inc., according to the most recent information available to The Leader.
This would not be the first time that William Roseman finds himself in court. Lindows (later to be known as “Linspire”) sued him and his colleagues about 5 years ago.
Buried in recently published financial documents is the news that Lindows, Inc., has been engaged in a lawsuit with rival and one-time partner Xandros, Inc. since the middle of December 2002. Lindows claims that Xandros failed to repay a $750,000 loan, and that the company and other defendants engaged in fraud and criminal misrepresentation during the negotiations leading up to Lindows’ investment in Xandros.
The information came to light when, on April 20, Lindows, Inc. filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering (IPO) of common stock.
According to court documents obtained by Newsforge, Lindows and Xandros began negotiations to enter into a strategic relationship in the second half of 2001. Two directors of the venture capital firm Linux Global Partners, Michael A. Bego and William J. Roseman, contacted Lindows executives and suggested that Lindows invest in Xandros, a newly formed entity that had been created by LGP to develop an operating system based on code from Canadian software company Corel. Lindows loaned Xandros a total of $750,000 and received three Promissory Notes in exchange, and the two companies entered into a strategic alliance on November 20, 2001.
[...]
To date, the defendants have largely ignored Lindows’ specific allegations; instead they have filed a motion that seeks to compel Lindows to enter into arbitration, while at the same time staying or dismissing the court action. However, three key defendents — Michael Bego, William Roseman, and LGP co-founder and Xandros Chairman Dr. Frederick H. Berenstein — have now been deposed (interviewed under oath without a judge being present). The parts of their testimony that do not relate to the Xandros motion may be a preview of the defense that they intend to present should the case go to trial.
In their sworn testimony, both William Roseman and Michael Bego maintain that it was their understanding that the funds provided by Lindows were pre-payments towards the revenue-sharing scheme established as part of the Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA). The strategic alliance was designed to allow Lindows to put Xandros technology into Lindows’ own operating system; in return, Lindows would pay royalties to Xandros, possibly as high as 50% of total operating system revenue.
Is it not ironic that Xandros later bought Linspire (formerly Lindows) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]?
While on this issue of legal circumstances, despite the fact that SCO issues some press releases, its very end might be near. SCO’s bankruptcy hearing is suddenly cancelled.
Tomorrow’s bankruptcy hearing has been cancelled. This is the one that was about signing off on some fees billed to SCO, the one I told you probably was worth skipping. I gather the court agreed. Why pay lawyers to show up for a hearing on something that isn’t opposed by anyone? It’s an unnecessary expense, if the judge is just going to sign, which is what he was certainly going to do. This is a sensible move. The hearing that matters is the next one, on June 15 on whether to send SCO to Chapter 7 or not.
Groklaw takes a look at what liquidation of SCO would involve.
What happens if a company ends up in Chapter 7 bankruptcy? Here’s the overview from Cornell University School of Law’s Legal Information Institute:
Legal matters are not our area, but Groklaw has all the valuable information. █
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05.23.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Linspire, Mail, Microsoft, Patents, xandros at 7:29 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Linspire customers are sent adverts for software that requires Windows
XANDROS is one of the few Linux vendors which signed a patent deal with Microsoft. Right not it is focused on selling software that requires Windows, demonstrating that it has gone the same way as Corel after it signed an agreement with Microsoft.
One of our readers, The Mad Hatter, has sent us an E-mail that Xandros dumped on former customers of Linspire (Xandros bought this company [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]). He explains: “Got this - I was signed up on the Linspire mailing list, and they sent me this. Which of course is no use to me, since I don’t run Windows.”
Here is a screenshot of the E-mail (shown below, click to enlarge). █
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04.30.09
Posted in Linspire, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Servers, UNIX, xandros at 2:10 am by Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft insists on holding the remote
Summary: A little more on Mono, but mostly news about Microsoft’s management of UNIX and Linux
IN WHAT appears like old news, one blogger has just shared what he calls “things to avoid on Ubuntu.” The list is very obvious.
Moonlight
This is Linux port of Microsoft sliverlight apparently designed to compete with adobe flash. Silver light doesn’t offer anything new that’s not already offered by adobe flash.
Linux distros previously included some of the technologies that were controversial because they were widespread and to make interoperability easy for new users. We don’t need this turd and it’s not widespread.
Mono
Here comes another patent covered piece of junk aggressively pushed by Novell.
Microsoft controls the API and also software patents, so Mono and its siblings are just part of Microsoft’s plot and they ought to be replaced. But the main new issue in this post is the following announcement about Microsoft’s Operations Manager, which is not new, but nonetheless it continues to illustrate just how Microsoft wants to be in the driver’s seat and decide what GNU/Linux can and cannot do.
Microsoft Tuesday opened its annual management confab saying it would ship the next version of Operations Manager by the end of June and laying out its efforts to manage data centers and virtualized environments.
[...]
With Operations Manager 2007 R2, Microsoft wants to deliver integration among Unix, Linux and the Microsoft System Center management software. Microsoft is bridging the gap between its tools and non-Windows platforms on the back of the WS-Management protocol it developed and OpenPegasus, an open-source implementation of the Distributed Management Task Force’s Common Information Model and Web-based Enterprise Management standards. Both WS-Management and OpenPegasus are used to discover physical and virtual systems on a network and monitor and manage them.
We wrote about this before, e.g. in:
Xandros too is helping Microsoft with this. It has just let loose the following press release.
Microsoft Management Summit - BridgeWays, a division of Xandros, today launched an initial set of application management packs in the extensive BridgeWays product line that enables system administrators to manage business critical applications on Windows, Linux, and Unix from a single console. The new line of management packs helps extend Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to additional business applications on Windows and to the 85% of enterprise data centers with cross-platform environments.
It turns out that Novell is there as well.
Not only will you get the chance to learn from peers and industry giants, networking opportunities abound and over 60 sponsors and exhibitors, including triCerat and such companies as HP, Novell, Citrix, and Dell, will showcase their wares in the MMS 2009 Expo.
Speaking of Xandros, Linspire’s Web site has only 4,890 pages indexed by Google at the moment and all are just leading to the Xandros Web site. So essentially, all those old Web pages from Linspire’s Web site are permanently gone and the Web Archive may be the last resort for ‘historians’ who study the demise of the company. █
“Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It’s a good thing we have museums to document that.”
–Bill Gates
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04.25.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Linspire, Microsoft, xandros at 7:58 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: What’s left of Xandros is mostly Presto
OVER the past few weeks we’ve seen a lot of Presto coverage but almost nothing else from Xandros*, which also contains Linspire now (it lumped up two patent deals with Microsoft). Last week we shared some examples and this week we have:
• Shipping Version of Presto Linux Makes Netbook Users Long for the Beta (mentioned also in eWeek)
Xandros launches Presto, a $19 Linux distribution that should have been just what the netbook market needed to stave off Windows 7 Starter Edition.
• Linux fast-boot tech targets Windows users
Xandros announced a Linux-based fast-boot technology that can be downloaded and installed by Windows users on “almost any PC.” The “Presto” utility can power up (and down) laptops “within seconds,” offering access to web, email, RealPlayer media, and an applications store (left), the company says.
• Add Instant-on To Any PC With Presto
Presto is installed like any other Windows program but it creates an Xandros-based boot environment that works just like the hardware versions. Users can thus get email, surf the web and do many other tasks within a few seconds of powering on the dead computer. The producers of Presto also have an application store that offers programs to add to the Presto environment.
• Boot quickly with Linux
On the other hand, another quick-boot installer runs within Windows and gives you a prompt at boot-up time, for you to choose between Windows and the lightweight Presto. It’s made by Xandros, a company known for its Linux products. On my HP Pavilion dv5t, Presto booted to a usable desktop in less than 20 seconds from the prompt, while Windows Vista took almost a minute. There’s a launch bar with icons for the Firefox browser, Skype, the Pidgin instant messenger client, a file manager and an application store, which shows you the programs already installed and links you to others for free. If you’re familiar with Linux in general, you’ll enjoy poking around Presto’s 400MB footprint, but it’s not all that easily configurable for the novice. As of April 13, Presto will cost $19.95. www.prestomypc.com
• 2009: I am now an official Linux Fan!
I have tried the beta version of the distro was free but I love it so much that I am about to fork out the $19.99 asking price for the final product. I think this is a very small price to pay for such a powerful and secure OS.
In addition, the Microsoft/Redmond press mentioned Xandros in a derogatory fashion but only by citing someone else, of course.
Netbooks running XP were “slightly more interesting than a Xandros Linux distribution,” he said. Still, some Linux flavors, like Ubuntu, have shown promise.
Xandros’ deal with Microsoft did not work out particularly well. They still explore other routes and ideas. █
______
* Nothing about CNR, almost nothing about ARM-powered machines.
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04.18.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel, Linspire, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, SUN, Ubuntu, xandros at 11:02 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SUSE news (a roundup) and a little bit about Xandros
SUSE (SLES/SLED)
NOVELL’S presence in the press this week was not mere, so here are the bits which covered or referred to SUSE. Among the stories that mention Novell there is this one about Dutch schools and Free software.
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04.04.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Linspire, Microsoft, xandros at 4:05 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A quick update on Linspire and Xandros, which signed patent deals with Microsoft
Linspire is already gone (devoured by Xandros [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]), Turbolinux is virtually unheard of, so Novell/SUSE remains almost the only Ballnux* to be concerned about. The GPLv3 stopped more such patent deals from being signed.
Reports are now suggesting that ASUS turns to Google at the expense of its old affair with Xandros. The simplified graphical interface mastered by ASUS can conveniently be substituted with Google’s.
Last month, Asus revealed that it’s already working on adapting Android for the Eee PC. The project is only ‘proof of concept’ at this stage said Samson Hu, head of Asus’ Eee PC line in an interview with news service Bloomberg.
[...]
Market research firm Ovum tips that Android will become the Linux distro of choice for netbooks in 2009, displacing fully featured desktop-class builds such as Ubuntu and Xandros (although Ubuntu is promoting its own tweak known as Ubuntu Netbook Remix to manufacturers).
Does this mark the end of a honeymoon with Xandros?
Xandros seems to have shifted focus to a new project which it calls Presto [1, 2, 3, 4] and this continues to receive some positive coverage this week. The press in Ottawa also mentioned Xandros a few days ago when it wrote about the Spring ’09 Technology Job Fair. “Organized by ITO 2.0, the event drew 55 exhibitors — from Abbott Point of Care, a medical devices firm, and Curtiss-Wright Controls, a military technology company, to Alcatel-Lucent, RIM and Xandros Corp., a computer software development firm,” said the article.
One cannot help wondering: where is CNR?
What has Xandros really made out of Linspire, if anything substantial at all?
Some days ago we discovered that Michael Robertson and Kevin Carmony, former colleagues and managers at Linspire, are still having their vicious cat fight.
This week, Michael Robertson took his next step in trying to suppress my blog and stifle my freedom of speech. Today I received his request for documents in his frivolous Freespire trademark lawsuit against me.
Is this how Linspire wishes to be remembered? Two people ridiculing and suing each other?
It seems safe to deduce that no single company which signed a patent deal with Microsoft truly ended up better off. Not even Novell. █
____
* Meaning a GNU/Linux distribution that Microsoft makes money from (via software patent deals).
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02.21.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Linspire, Windows, xandros at 6:31 pm by Roy Schestowitz
A leg up with Arm, without Microsoft
XANDROS is a company that we boycott because of its patent deal with Microsoft and assistance to OOXML. Xandros also swallowed Linspire [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], which magnifies the issues with it. Linspire is no more by the way. As we stressed very recently, whatever Microsoft touches, Microsoft ruins. Companies must learn this quickly because history has been very consistent.
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