Linspire/Microsoft Agreement Useless to Users 155
Stephen Samuel writes "Groklaw host PJ has dissected the 'patent peace' agreement between Linspire and Microsoft, and has determined that what Linspire agreed to is next to useless for many users. Essentially, under the agreement Linspire software is almost unusable: 'You can't share the software with others, pass it on with the patent promise, modify your own copy, or even use it for an "unauthorized" purpose, whatever that means in a software context. You must pay Linspire for the software, but then the "covenant" says to use Linux, you must also pay Microsoft. That payment doesn't cover upgrades. Linspire said it was absorbing the initial fees, but I don't know about upgrades. New functionality means you lose your coverage or presumably must pay again.'"
Re:Ah well (Score:4, Informative)
It's just money you pay to Microsoft to keep them from trashing your store^W^W^Wsueing for patent infringement.
Re:Linspire's Claim to Fame? (Score:2, Informative)
Somewhere between that promise and the actual release of Lindows 1.0, they had a falling out with Codeweavers, and Codeweavers terminated their business relationship with Lindows:
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/04/05/
Neither Codeweavers nor Lindows had much to say in public that I am aware of, but there have been rumors that the main issue was that Lindows wasn't too keen on the idea of releasing their Wine modifications, and that while Codeweavers persuaded them to release a lot of code, the relationship kind of soured from there. Again, this is conjecture and rumor that I remember hearing at the time, not (AFAIK) documented fact, but based on how secretive Lindows was during their first beta cycle (beta testers paid $99 bucks and got the title Lindows Insider and access to betas), not releasing source code and saying "The source will be there when we release 1.0" (IIRC the source was released at the time), I find the conjecture plausible.
Re:ESR (Score:4, Informative)
As a matter of fact it's not necessary to wait for a public comment from ESR to know his views. If anything, these events can only reinforce his views that he wants "to see Microsoft broken on the wheel not by government fiat but by enlightened consumer choice". (Source: Halloween Documents FAQ [catb.org]
Isn't he on the linspire board or something?
According to this post [zdnet.com] apparantly by Linspire's CEO Eric is (or at least still was on Feb 23, 2007) "one of many un-paid volunteers of the Freespire [freespire.org] Leadership Board". I wouldn't be surprised if Eric reconsiders his involvement in that project in reaction to Linspire's agreement with Microsoft, but it's his choice of course.
Re:All I can say is... (Score:2, Informative)
Now if Dell is already installing the needed packages and doing the setup, or making it easier, that's one thing, but I was unaware if they are.
Re:All I can say is... (Score:3, Informative)
It is not irrational, and it is not hatred either, it is founded fear of a company that obviously dislikes any competition and that from what we have seen is now buying distros in an indirect way to circumvent the GPL and then get FUD-tale whores or slaves or whatever that guys like novell and linspire have become, it is still useless for linspire users if there is such a thing like them.
I guess that according to your comment Linspire's target market is a bunch of people that at the same time don't want windows, yet they don't have any 'irrational hatred of Microsoft' but still, they would love to buy an OS that (because of previous linspire cost+the patent covenant) is more expensive than windows, yet it is very good at locking them in? So I am guessing the target market for Linspire are a bunch of stupid people?
Re:Does Linspire have any market share? (Score:1, Informative)