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Xandros Reportedly Buys Out Linspire
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jun 30, 2008 09:19 PM
from the surely-somebody's-making-money-here dept.
from the surely-somebody's-making-money-here dept.
2muchcoffeeman writes "Former Linspire president and CEO Kevin Carmony — whose relationship with his former employer has turned acrimonious, to say the least — reported on his blog that Xandros and Linspire signed an agreement in principle for Xandros to buy Linspire June 19. Carmony includes a scan of the memo to Linspire shareholders announcing the deal, which requires the former Linspire company to change its name. According to the memo, the stockholders voted to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone, Inc. Despite the wording of the Linspire memo to stockholders, this deal apparently came as a surprise to Carmony and other stockholders. Some here may remember that both Xandros and Linspire signed patent protection deals with Microsoft in 2007."
Related Stories
[+]
Your Rights Online: Microsoft Gives Xandros Users Patent Protection 298 comments
DigDuality writes "Microsoft, shrugging off licensing moves to prevent it from repeating its controversial patent deal with Novell, has signed a set of broad collaboration agreements with Linux provider Xandros that include an intellectual property assurance under which Microsoft will provide patent covenants for Xandros customers."
[+]
Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS 386 comments
RLiegh sends us to an AP article reporting that Linspire has signed a patent deal with Microsoft. The company, which started out life as "Lindows," joins a growing list of patent agreements reached between Microsoft and vendors. Linspire will be granted a license to use True Type Fonts and "various code" that would allow for Linspire users to use voice on Windows Live Messenger as well as the usual patent protection for Linspire's customers. In return, among other things, Linspire will make Microsoft's search engine the default search on PCs shipped with their OS. Kevin Carmony, the CEO for Linspire, approached Microsoft a year and a half ago, according to the article.
[+]
Your Rights Online: Michael Robertson Sued Over Missing Linspire Cash 18 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Blogger and
ex-Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony reports that Michael Robertson has been sued
by a Linspire shareholder to get to the bottom of what happened to Linspire's
assets. One hundred shareholders have been left uninformed as to what
happened to the company and its assets after Linspire was sold to Xandros a few
months back."
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Obscure stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Linspire users must be as rare as hen's teeth, I've certainly never even heard of a single person using it, other than the guy who reviewed it for distrowatch. Same goes for Xandros. though I did download that one once to check it out with a windows-stranded friend in mind, but saw no advantage over Ubuntu.
Come to think of it, who the heck is eweek?
Re:Obscure stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Obscure stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is it really does make a nice drop in replacement for a business desktop on a Windows network,and even comes with Crossover Office so your major Windows apps will run. As it is I am quite happy with its performance and ability to get me on different SMB AD networks that I am called in to work on without hassle. When I am out on a job I don't have to twiddle with the CLI,and for me Xandros just gets the job done reliably. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
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Re: (Score:2)
Eee (Score:5, Informative)
The ASUS EEE runs a derivative of Xandros, although Xandros sort of disowns it:
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Re:Obscure stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Come to think of it, who the heck is eweek?
They're one of those shitty "tech magazines". PC World, Network World, CIO Mag, all trash magazines that you can basically pick up for free in those little magazine racks that nobody pays attention to in computer stores. The magazines are 75% ads and 25% ads masquerading as articles.
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Re:eWeek and Spencer the Cat (Score:4, Insightful)
Most editors and writers got bribed by computer companies to write a good article on their product in exchange for keeping the product plus other gifts.
As a former senior editor at InfoWorld, I request that you either substantiate that claim or keep your opinions to yourself. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
For the record, I know for a fact that nobody accepts any kind of gifts in exchange for editorial coverage at InfoWorld. I can't speak for eWeek of my own experience, but I have no reason to believe they're any different.
Incidentally, I'm sure there are plenty of people on Slashdot who will say that you're shitty at your job, too, but it's really none of their business, now is it?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Gladly, Infoworld explores such a thing here [infoworld.com].
It is no secret that vendors give out "gifts" and this happens for many corporations even magazine publishing corporations.
So you are telling me that despite Infoworld employees being given "gifts" by vendors, it does not influence how they write their article, and just because the article written is positive and the writer and/or editor got "gifts" it is not selling out or shilling or even considered unethical?
That somehow because I cited a problem in the media,
Re:eWeek and Spencer the Cat (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are telling me that despite Infoworld employees being given "gifts" by vendors, it does not influence how they write their article, and just because the article written is positive and the writer and/or editor got "gifts" it is not selling out or shilling or even considered unethical?
And I am telling you -- not just making stuff up, as you are doing, but telling you -- that it is specifically against InfoWorld editorial policy to accept gifts of any kind in exchange for editorial coverage. I say this out of firsthand knowledge. On what do you base your repeated claims? An editorial that was written in 2002 on a different topic?
That somehow because I cited a problem in the media, it means I do a shitty job?
No, what I am saying is that by making baseless accusations you are in effect accusing a lot of very talented, very dedicated people of doing shitty jobs. I wouldn't do that to you. What gives you the right? Furthermore, what makes you think you shouldn't be called out on it?
If you had any kind of evidence to support your claims, you would name names, at least, and allow those people to defend themselves. God forbid you should have any actual evidence. But to just say "all the editors take bribes," without so much as naming a single name, makes you not just a liar, but a coward, too.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well some people seem to think so [nixternal.com] and so do others [tbray.org] and some gave awards [roughlydrafted.com] for shilling.
But clearly I must apologize as I don't know what I am talking about, nor does any other Slashdot reader. I don't know why we say these things, must be a geek thing. We are all liars and cowards, like you said. Must be why we disagree about Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows with you.
I'm sorry and I apologize, it was a botched joke.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I accept the apology. I likewise apologize; you made me hot under the collar, because as you point out above, people in my industry have to take crap like this all the time.
I'll put it to you this way, and then I'll leave it alone, because you've already apologized and it's seriously off-topic anyway: You can say that I or any of my colleagues in the industry are stupid. You can say we don't know what we're talking about. You can say we can't write. You could say you could do a better job than us. You can s
Re:eWeek and Spencer the Cat (Score:5, Insightful)
Having had a girlfriend who was diagnosed as schizoaffective, I know that you probably go through hell. I do want to tell you something related to the post you linked to.. It is highly doubtful that anyone "hates" you for any post. The thing about discussion boards is it can end up with people trying to show each other up and trying to prove how much smarter they are.. and true there are going to be times when you may say something someone else doesn't like, but to say they "hate" you would be incorrect.
In your situation, discussion boards can be good for you.. but.. Just make sure you don't over anaylise peoples responses.. and remember this really doesn't mean squat in the big picture of life. Mod points and karma won't get you a nickel off a burrito at Taco Bell... and people don't sit at home thinking about what Orion Blaster posted that they did or didn't agree with.
Although you may not be ready to go to work, you might consider using your skills at home to help some open source projects, or even just starting you own project (even if for fun).. just keep things as manageable as you want, and work when your feeling good, and concentrate on your health when your not feeling so good.
Best of luck to you, and hang in there.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
PCM2 (aka Neil Mcallister) is right.
Here's an excerpt from one of his articles [javaworld.com] at Infoworld, entitled "Schwartz doesn't get Linux".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My first home server ran Xandros. After a failed attempt many years ago with Redhat, then a half-way working attempt with Debian, I found Xandros (2.0 at the time, I think) to be something that "just worked". I kept that server running for a few years, before I switched to Ubuntu.
At the time it was $99 well spent, since it made Linux work for a non-user, hardware engineer. Since then Ubuntu (and OpenOffice) have filled that gap well and it's just not necessary to buy a distribution for those benefits.
the geek's short attention span (Score:5, Insightful)
The OEM Linspire PC could be found at Walmart.
Linspire carried the torch for OEM Linux - Linux as a direct competitor to Windows in the consumer market.
Linspire irritated the FOSS purist because it believed the installed and licensed proprietary media codec and player was essential to delivering a commercially viable product.
It sold commercial software through its CNR [cnr.com] repository.
Bitstrean fonts. DVD players. Games like Postal.
To this day, Walmart and Consumer Reports find it necessary to publish a disclaimer whenever they expose a newcomer to OEM Linux:
This is a Linux based PC and will not perform completely like a Windows based machine. It can perform basic activities such as E-mail, Web Browsing, Music and Pictures.
To this day, the mass-market Linux PC remains firmly anchored among the bottom-feeders. To this day. Linux hasn't broken through to a 1% share on the consumer desktop. Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Xandros? I used it, and installed it for like 5 people.
That was, of course, WAYY back when it was "Corel Linux", an innovative desktop for sure (and yes, they fell behind because they forked KDE... but man it was SO COOL being able to resize your display rez without restarting X... yes, Linux was THAT bad back then).
The other distros were all neat back when Red Hat was IGNORING the desktop. They still are, but Ubuntu has steamrolled and consolidated this space... and deservedly so!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I am former Linspire user, now I use Freespire.
You can see a picture of me using Linspire here:
http://www.linspire.com/lraiser_success.php?serial=318 [linspire.com]
(rather old picture anyway).
My main cmoputer iss an HP Pavilion dv 5000 laptop. Ubuntu prior 8.04 didn't recognize the wifi card (unless you do extensive hacking, to have a sub-standart result). With Freespire it works "out of the box" (using NDISwrapper). Everything work very easy, even easier than Ubuntu (my wife machine, a Sony VAIO VGN-CR220E, uses Ubuntu).
Used Freespire (And Lindows) (Score:4, Interesting)
Name change idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Name change idea (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Name change idea (Score:5, Funny)
lxiannsdpriorse
Darn, domain is taken.
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Commercial Viability (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Precisely. I never expected Linspire to succeed, partly because of what they were trying to do, and partly because of who it was that was trying to do it, and partly because of when they were trying to do it - long after the ship for Yet Another Proprietary Linux Distro had already sailed.
Xandros had, in their day, a better shot at what they were trying to do. When Xandros came out, they put some user-friendly wrappings around Debian and took extra care to make it integrate easily and well into a Windows ne
Re:Linspire... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:it is like this (Score:5, Funny)
one turd swallows another turd, all you got is a bigger turd...
You are a true poet.
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