Interesting to say the least. Not completely sure I agree with trying this approach in its current firm, I do use Linspire and SuSE both. Not too sure if using Freespire really offers anything for me specifically, though.

Linspire, developer of the popular commercial desktop Linux operating system of the same name, today announced plans for a no-cost version of their operating system called Freespire. Kevin Carmony, Linspire’s President and CEO, unveiled the Freespire project in his keynote address this morning at the 4th Annual Desktop Linux Summit, running today and tomorrow in San Diego. In his remarks, Carmony explained how Freespire is a community driven and developed project, but unique for open source Linux distributions in that it will allow users the choice to download a version that is 100% open-source or one that includes proprietary software.

Freespire is venturing into new territory by offering a free community Linux operating system that includes the option for legally licensed proprietary software pieces in the core distribution. The Freespire community project and Web site are now live at www.freespire.org, with the first beta release of the operating system to be made available for download in August. The release will mark the first time Linspire is making such a free version of their Linux operating system available to the public. For more details on the Freespire project or to sign up for the Freespire community mailing list, visit www.freespire.org.

Linux has found broad acceptance on servers but has met with some resistance from desktop and laptop computer users, in part from its lack of native support for some hardware, file types and multi media formats. Freespire addresses this hurdle by offering proprietary drivers and software as a choice, and gives desktop Linux users the option of “out-of-the-box” legal support for MP3, DVD, Windows Media, QuickTime, Java, Flash, Real, ATI drivers, nVidia drivers, Adobe Acrobat Reader, third-party fonts, and so on. Other Linux distributions do not include these pieces of proprietary software in their core free distributions…. Source: eHomeUpgrade

[tags]linux,linspire,freespire,linux summit,carmony,san diego[/tags]