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Linux Business

Xandros Reportedly Buys Out Linspire 153

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."
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Xandros Reportedly Buys Out Linspire

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  • Obscure stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by clang_jangle ( 975789 ) * on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:21PM (#24010305) Journal
    From the eweek link:

    #97 Kevin Carmony - Linspire/Freespire
    Guiding Linux distribution to be among the most popular on the desktop.


    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)

      by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:25PM (#24010333) Journal
      Good points, but Xandros is the default Linux distro for the Asus EEE PC. I'd expect a sudden boost in popularity just from that.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @10:47PM (#24011447)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I think you are mistaken about the API necessities. Contemporary versions of Samba, Kerberos, and LDAP work quite nicely with Active Directory integration. Additional API's might be desirable to replace Active Directory _servers_, and the Samba team is having understandable difficulty getting all the details right for Samba 4.0. But keeping Microsoft's alleged but undocumented and unrevealed patents away from your investors could easily be worth signing such an agreement to a company that just wants to sell

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Oh, my. Replacing _Exchange_, and most especially its calendar functions, to interoperate well with MS Outlook, is like dancing with bears. It's amazingly that they'll dance at all with you, and you have to be very careful not to get stepped on or clawed.

              Active Directory's individual functions can generally be better handled in a more consistent, configurable, and manageable way by providing its individual services and not managing them through a GUI that doesn't even know how to configure what its own stan

    • heh, pretty much exactly what i was thinking too. I don't think anyone in their right mind uses linspire. Don't they charge just to use their repository? what's the point when there's a ton of free alternatives which are likely just as good if not better.
      • They have to charge for something, they are using direct financial income to support the development they do. They do in fact write some code for their distro, though i can't remember what it was at the moment.

        • And... Red Hat doesn't pay developers to work on RHEL/Fedora and Fedora is a free as in speech and beer distro. And doesn't Canonical pay developers to improve Ubuntu even when it is a free as in speech and beer distro?
          • Yes, I'm just saying their business model is quite different so they have to charge for something somewhere. Xandros actually charges for software, most of them charge for support and give the software away for free. RHEL is 100% GPL as far as i know, but some Xandros stuff isn't GPL or even open source, so they can literally prevent people from giving it away like you can with RHEL (centos).

          • by Knuckles ( 8964 )

            And? RedHat charges a lot for its distro, and Ubuntu has a millionaire to pay the bills.

            • And? RedHat charges a lot for its distro

              Strictly, RedHat charges for the support contract that goes with the software (and also you get Red Hat branding, for those who care about such things).

              If all you want is the software, you can get that for free, with RedHat's blessing. CentOS would be

              • by Knuckles ( 8964 )

                I know, but without paying you don't get the RH packages in the form of a usable distro. So in effect they charge for that, too, in a way.

      • by stm2 ( 141831 )

        Don't they charge just to use their repository?

        No, they don't. But they used to do it.

    • Eee (Score:5, Informative)

      by wytcld ( 179112 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:27PM (#24010357) Homepage

      The ASUS EEE runs a derivative of Xandros, although Xandros sort of disowns it:

      Does Xandros Provide Support for the Eee PC?
      No. The Eee PC is an ASUS product and is solely supported by them, including Operating system issues. The Operating System on the Eee PC is not a Xandros Product. While Xandros may have aided in the development of the Eee PC OS, it is owned and supported by ASUS.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Burz ( 138833 )

        That's good to know, because Xandros is one of the corps that signed a patent deal with MS while Steve Ballmer was threatening Linux users over supposed patent infringement.

        More than that is GPLv3, which only grandfathered in the deal with Novell. As time goes on and GPLv3 figures more largely in the typical Linux distro, the other corps who signed on with MS will be stuck in a hard place.

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by initialE ( 758110 )
        A pity that Asus doesn't provide a lot of good support, especially for the Linux wireless drivers for the built-in aetheros device (fyi my experience was that WPA wasn't working) - afaik it's either community support or nothing. Which is strange since both the distro and the hardware specs are clearly not unknowns.
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          I remember the days when PC magazine was a good magazine. It had reviews, technical howto articles and did decent reviews. I still remember the war between Windows and OS/2. As Microsoft became the only player in town, the magazine stopped being "PC magazine" and became "Windows magazine". Then it went all downhill.

      • Didn't know that! Well, be it Asus or Xandros, I find that they did a very good job here! Out of the EEE box, everything "just works". I never had so little problems with video and sound formats as on the EEE. If they only could sign a deal with Apple to get quicktime working flawlessly as well ;)
    • Re:Obscure stuff (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dice ( 109560 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:28PM (#24010361)

      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.

      • Infoworld and eWeek were the computer tabloids that wished they were Byte or even Compute!, they had more articles that shilled products than they had neutral articles if you could find one. 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.

        Spencer the Cat was the gossip guy, but around 2000 his gossip columns became more advertising and less rumor. I think when he made a prediction that Microsoft would swi

        • by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @09:53PM (#24011031) Homepage

          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?

          • 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,

            • by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @10:35PM (#24011373) Homepage

              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.

              • 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)

                  by PCM2 ( 4486 )

                  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

                  • No problem, I get angry too and lose my temper. I understand and again I am sorry. You've shown me that I made a mistake and that I was wrong. You have proven yourself to be one of the good ones.

                    I am sorry that I was one of those overzealous computer geeks trying to strike back for anti-Linux and FUD articles, and I am glad to see that you are anti-FUD which gains you some respect for me and changed my opinion on Infoworld and eWeek. I was just playing along with Dice in this thread, joking around like I us

                  • I write things to help with my mental illness [slashdot.org] and I also write humor and satire.

                    I used to be a fully functional human being, top notch, always positive, programmer/analyst that earned very good money. But the stress got to me and I had a nervous breakdown. I got sick, got high blood pressure and had heart problems, and my stomach and colon started to fail on me and then I developed schizoaffective disorder around 2000 after I had solved the Y2K issues in everyone else's code on my team and management kept p

                    • by dbcad7 ( 771464 ) on Tuesday July 01, 2008 @01:58AM (#24012585)

                      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.

                    • Thank you.

                      I fix computers for free in my spare time. I tried to write a few programs but had my hard drive crash and I could not afford a reliable backup system.

                      I had a few open source ideas, but put them on the back burner in order that I could try and get healthier. I had a family member pass away recently and she had what I have schizoaffective disorder and she died at 36. I am sort of getting over that. I had my best friend kill himself in 1999 and he had it too. I am trying not to end up that way. You

                    • ... and people don't sit at home thinking about what Orion Blaster posted that they did or didn't agree with.

                      Agree. I couldn't help thinking of the following xkcd comic, but note that this is the wrong way to go about things:

                      http://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com]

                    • by dbcad7 ( 771464 )

                      I understand what you mean about the friends.. In my ex's case she had this cycle.. depression, short time of relative normalcy, followed by mania, which would build until she had the hallucinations.. followed of course by depression... For the people in her life, dealing with the depression is hard and although her mania's started out somewhat positive, they eventually built up into rants of negativity... so she is unpredictable, and the people that care for her never know what to expect.. so they tend to

                    • Yeah but I am non-violent and I don't believe on getting revenge on people even if they are sociopaths or bullies. Success is the best revenge, so I am working on getting healthier and then maybe forming a small business and do something to earn money as nobody will hire me so I'll have to start up a small business and hire myself.

                      But I understand where you are coming from, I've had John Forbes Nash moments (A Beautiful Mind, read the book not watch the movie) in schizophrenia that helped me solve complex c

                    • You have a point that I am labeled as schizophrenic for not being an average normal human being. I am more of a mutant I guess? Homo superior, and I know and learned over 30 different computer languages, I have an analytical mind and do deductive reasoning and logic, I can figure out complex computer problems that hardly anyone else knows how to solve, I can take "sloppy code" and debug it and improve the quality and make it run faster, I dream in code, I have divine flashes about the future (I can see 15 s

                    • Yeah I believe you, my Belgium brother-in-law gave me a book by Kevin Trudeau called "The Weight Loss Cure they don't want you to know about" and he exposes that conspiracy in the USA and the rest of the world for processed and genetically engineered and artificial food (and now cloned meat) full of pesticides and chemical junk that causes most of us to get sick who don't have a high metabolism to burn it off. In Europe they know that and have health clinics to detoxify the body, but only the wealthy can af

                    • First I must point out that this nightmare is a worse case scenario that may or may not happen. Time is the forth dimension and is in a state of flux. My nightmares tap into that flux in a way that no human mind can understand. Please don't be scared by it. Temporal physics is a new subject and human beings are only now just understanding it and you'd have to have a Stephen Hawking intellect to just understand how they work. That is the problem with time and time travel, and M-Theory in general and general

                    • Yes basically I was given a "mental illness" to discredit me for the things I know and learned while working as a contractor for the federal government under the Clinton administration and a law firm that had ties to the Democratic party. They made me an offer to join their conspiracy or they would destroy my career and possibly try to kill me. I refused and I became mentally ill and physically sick (I think they poisoned me as you describe) and then discriminated against until I was forced on disability. I

                    • The Warbot is a prototype I've been working on for a few years. It got activated again and started reading my Slashdot posts.

                      Perhaps I revealed too much for now. I was reminded thanks to the Warbot that I was revealing too much information.

                    • I know I am not alone. Michael Crawford [michaeldavidcrawford.com] is one such person I communicated with over the Internet like you are. He informed me of the Thought Police [vancouverdiaries.com] that where after him and I know they were after me as well. But he wrote Living with Schizoaffective Disorder [geometricvisions.com] that helped me out. He warns us of atomic bombs [hydrogenbomb.org] in the nuclear global war that is coming up in the future.

                      I wrote the AI web bot Warbot 1Alpha based on my holy grail project of 1995, the only thing that comes close to it is Trane's subbot [subbot.org] but my bot is w

                • 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".

                  Schwartz really had me going there - right up to his next line. "And frankly," he said, "its principal competitor is none other than Microsoft Windows." Huh?! That's like a company that sells nothing but certified, purebred cocker spaniels claiming that the principal competition for its product is a purebred cat. But then, Sun has never been able to own up to the elephant-size m

                  • Sure changed my mind as well. Though I had been influenced by IWETHEY in the past, that left Infoworld's forum and web site over matters like that.

                    I admit to being wrong and making a mistake, Neil Mcallister, you are one of the good ones and you earned Infoworld new respect from me.

              • disregarding the issue if infoworld editors are getting paid in some way for writing positive articles, I just checked the site to see if maybe I would be prejudiced about infoworld's quality.

                Guess what, browsing to infoworld.com opens a page with *just one single huge dell ad*, and a link "skip this ad". Sorry, I do not take any site seriously that has to resort to those tactics. I even stopped going to the Onion when they started that, and that site wasn't serious to begin with ;)

                The layout of the inf

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by jonah82 ( 1317291 )
      Seeing as Xandros is the default eeepc distro I'm guessing quite a lot of people are using it. As to why asus decided on it, that, I agree is perplexing.
    • I bought Linspire 5.0 but did not upgrade to Linspire 6.0 and I went to Fedora and Ubuntu instead. I went to Ubuntu after Linspire started to be based on Ubuntu.

      Linspire had a Freespire version which was like Linspire but had all of the commercial code and software removed and nothing but GPLed software for critics of Linspire that said it was too commercial and because it cost $50 it was not true Linux unless it was given away free. Freespire was the core of Linspire just like Darwin is the core of Mac OSX

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SydShamino ( 547793 )

      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.

    • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @10:27PM (#24011299)
      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

      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]

      • by stm2 ( 141831 )

        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.

        Yes, but it irritated more the UNIX purist because it policy of running as root as default in earlier betas. That was a worst offense than packing proprietary drivers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sleepy ( 4551 )

      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!

    • 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.

      I think it was meant as a half way house between Windows and Linux. So good for transitioning, but not really something that is for long term use. I know one person who used to use it, but she jumped ship around the time of the Microsoft deal, and is using Ubuntu on one of the Dell laptops last I heard.

    • Though I am a Slackware user and have been for years, Xandros does appear to be the best distro for the OOB experience FOR A DESKTOP. Not the best solution if you want to set up a server, router, firewall or such, but for a destkop Xandros really does make a lot of things easy.

      I have the Eee PC and have tried almost all the available distros (Debian, Eeedora, Puppeee, Breezy, Slaxeee (my favourite "other" Eee distro), Eeexubuntu...), with some of them I spent several days of serious work, but in the end, Xa

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stm2 ( 141831 )

      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).

    • by stm2 ( 141831 )

      In this screenshot I am using Freespire:
      http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screen1jy9.jpg [imageshack.us]

  • by s0litaire ( 1205168 ) * on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:25PM (#24010339)
    Never liked them much. Xandros is on the way out too. Only thing it has at the moment is that it's shipped on the Eee PC by default (apart from XP). But Given that people then stick their own flavour of Linux on an Eee (Like Ubuntu). Once the UMPC version of Ubuntu is release,d it might take over Xandros's place on the Eee PC's
  • by mrroot ( 543673 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:32PM (#24010397)
    Might I suggest... Lindows?
    • by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @08:50PM (#24010563)
      Since I'm a Mandriva user, in the spirit of Mandrake + Connectiva = Mandriva, I vote for Xandros + Linspire = Xanspire. Or maybe Lindros, but I think that may give people a concussion.
    • by dedazo ( 737510 )
      Following the Madrake-Conectiva lead which gave the world the term "Mandriva", maybe they could name it Xanspire. Or Linsandros. Or maybe Spiredros? Drospire?
  • Linspire... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    is the America online of Linux distrobutions. In other words, it's for people who don't know any better. The only difference is that it lacks a marketing department.
    • Re:Linspire... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Monday June 30, 2008 @09:51PM (#24011011) Journal
      I'd agree, but no one knows about it in the first place. I have followed its development, only because Micheal Robertson's Micheal's minutes blog posts were so wrong they were funny. They required you to pay to use the beta that required you to run the system as root. That's so freaking sadistic, its hilarious.
    • is the America online of Linux distributions. In other words, it's for people who don't know any better. The only difference is that it lacks a marketing department.

      Linspire had a marketing department.

      Which is why the OEM Linspire PC could be purchased off the shelf at Walmart - and why the Lindows-Windows dust-up was worth a few thousand posts to Slashdot.

      AOL reached about thirty million U.S. households at its peak.

      In nine million homes it is still there. AOL rate increase maybe not as dumb as it loo [cnet.com]

  • and gets bought out by a rival and then shelved or made irrelevant but die hard fans will still stick to it and use it anyway.

    The same thing happened to BeOS and OS/2. I think there is a lesson to be learned here on how to market your product better than just nickle and dime marketing and why third party driver and software support is really really important and you should not mess that opportunity up.

    I still remember the Linspire 1960's Marketing, with a Gogo Girl dancing to "Come on baby light my fire" bu

  • Interesting.
  • by jasonmanley ( 921037 ) <jman@math.com> on Monday June 30, 2008 @09:48PM (#24010983) Homepage Journal
    I am still stunned that any company can make money on a desktop linux product. There are so many GOOD free options available to the end user that I just cannot see where the potential revenue stream is. I use Mandriva 2008 Spring. It HAS and DOES everthing that I need on a desktop. Now maybe this is because I am using it in a private capacity and maybe it changes the moment I put it into a commercial workspace - maybe someone can enlighten me. Is it the support agreements? is this where the money is? How much revenue can desktop support genererate?
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gujo-odori ( 473191 )

      I'm not sure why anyone would mod this Insightful when it's nothing of the sort and may be just a troll, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and answer.

      Yes, the money to be made from offering a Linux distro comes mostly from support contracts. Red Hat Enterprise Linux costs what it does not because it's better than free versions such as CentOS - which is an unbranded version of RHEL, recompiled from the RHEL source packages - but because RH provides enterprise-level support for RHEL/RHAS licenses. Tha

      • by Otter ( 3800 )
        I'm not sure why anyone would mod this Insightful when it's nothing of the sort and may be just a troll...

        1) You're assuming that all or almost all of Red Hat's support revenue is for desktops, which is not in my experience anywhere near true. (I'd welcome numbers if you have them, though.)

        2) Linspire and Xandros are both consumer oriented, which has nothing to do with where Red Hat makes what desktop support revenue they do have.

    • I am still stunned that any company can make money on a desktop linux product. [...] Now maybe this is because I am using it in a private capacity and maybe it changes the moment I put it into a commercial workspace - maybe someone can enlighten me.

      Yes, it's because of that.

      If all you want is to download a desktop Linux distro and run it at home, you don't need anything else, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE etc. are great for that.

      However, if you're doing anything else, then things are different. If you're installing 100,000 desktops in your company, you might want to pay for support. Sure, your in-house tech guys might figure out any hitches you run into, but it might take less time and cost less to get quick answers from the people making the product

  • Glad that's over. Maybe they should rename it Perspire. Don't let your Linspiration become your Perspiration.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Glad that's over. Maybe they should rename it Perspire.

      Or Expire...

  • Want to have a good laugh, do a Slashdot search for Lindows [slashdot.org].. The original pitch was that it would be a Linux distribution that could run Window's applications just as easily as Linux applications. Most people here recognized that it was, b.s. from the getgo, since the technical challenges of doing such a distribution were much greater than Lindow's developer resources. Plus, the Lindows CEO Michael Robertson was more of a "pitch guy" than someone who actually knows how to deliver a robust software product.
    • by Linegod ( 9952 )

      Want to have a good laugh, do a Slashdot search for Ubuntu [slashdot.org] The original pitch was that it would be a Linux distribution that would be the easiest to use, best supported, user friendly distro on the planet. Most people here recognized that it was, b.s. from the getgo, since the technical challenges of doing such a distribution were much greater than Ubuntu's developer resources. Plus, the Ubuntu CEO Mark Shuttleworth was more of a "pitch guy" than someone who actually knows how to deliver a robust software

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Robertson [wikipedia.org] So he is basically screwing everybody associated with Linspire, like he screwed everybody associated with MP3.com? If it smells like a rat, it must be Michael Robertson.

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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