Freespire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 A screenshot of Freespire RC1 |
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| Website: | http://www.freespire.org |
| Company/ developer: |
Linspire Inc. and the community |
| OS family: | Linux |
| Source model: | open source with optional closed source components |
| Latest stable release: | 1.0.13 / August 7, 2006 |
| Latest unstable release: | 1.2.49 / March 22, 2007 |
| Available language(s): | English |
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| Supported platforms: | i386, AMD64, IA-64 |
| Kernel type: | Monolithic kernel |
| Default user interface: | KDE |
| License: | free/open source licenses (mostly GPL) with optional proprietary components |
| Working state: | Current |
Freespire is a community-driven Linux distribution which is composed entirely of free/open source software, while providing users the choice of including proprietary software including multimedia codecs, device drivers and application software as they see fit.
Freespire is originally derived from Linspire, a commercial operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux, and now forms the base from which new releases of Linspire are derived.
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[edit] History
In August 2005, a distribution Live CD based on Linspire's source pools named Freespire hit the web by accident.[1] This distribution was created by Andrew Betts and was not produced or released by Linspire Inc. Freespire was confused by some users to be an actual product from Linspire, and at the request of Linspire the distribution adopted a development codename Squiggle[2] and began looking for a new name. Linspire then, on the back of the generated publicity, offered users a "free Linspire" (purchase price discounted to $0) by using the coupon code "Freespire" until September 9, 2005, thereby greatly increasing its userbase.[citation needed] Squiggle OS is no longer in active development.
On April 24, 2006, Linspire announced its own project named "Freespire".[3] The new Freespire distribution was announced by Linspire President and CEO Kevin Carmony. This follows to the model of Fedora Core being supported by Red Hat and the community since 2003. Novell had also started a similar community project by the name of openSUSE for its SUSE Linux product line in the second half of 2005.
On July 14, 2006, the first beta release of Freespire became available for download.[4]
On August 7, 2006, Freespire 1.0 was released three weeks ahead of schedule.[5]
On September 27, 2006 Eric S. Raymond, founder of the Open Source Initiative, joined the Freespire Leadership Team.
On November 22, 2006, Freespire 2.0 Alpha 1 (1.1.57) was released.[6]
On December 7, 2006 Freespire 2.0 Alpha 2 (1.1.73) was released.[6]
On December 21, 2006 Freespire 2.0 Alpha 3 (1.1.84) was released.[6]
On March 8, 2007 Freespire 2.0 Alpha 1U (1.2.42) was released.[6]
On March 22, 2007 Freespire 2.0 Alpha 2U (1.2.49) was released.[6]
[edit] Features
The distribution is a Debian-based, community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution. Freespire includes previously proprietary elements from Linspire, such as the Click N' Run (CNR) client, while other elements, which Linspire itself licenses but does not own, like the Windows Media Audio compatibility libraries, remain closed source. Consequently, there are two versions of Freespire, one with the closed source libraries, and one, called Freespire OSS Edition, that includes only open-source components. Freespire has a number of in-house programs written in Haskell and O'Caml, such as its ISO image builder, its hardware detection and autoconfiguration, its package autobuilder and "Debian library", and also the programs managing the CGI.
Unlike Linspire version 5 and earlier, Freespire does not enable the root account by default. Instead, it gives sudo rights to all members of the admin group. However, some people claim that this is not a security improvement due to the fact that the admin user can become superuser without entering a password.[7]
[edit] Future
Freespire 2.0 (which, as of December 15, 2006, is currently under development) is slated for release in 2nd Quarter 2007. This will be the first version of Freespire to include the new open-source CNR client. [See Freespire roadmap] It will also be be built from Ubuntu instead of Debian, which is what all previous versions of Freespire/Linspire were. It will also include the "newer" Kernel 2.6.20 and KDE 3.5.6.
To learn more about the future of Freespire see the Freespire roadmap.[8]
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[edit] References
- ^ Wasn't there a Freespire project released towards the end of 2005? Is this the same project?. Freespire FAQ. Freespire.org. Retrieved on May 4, 2006.
- ^ Squiggle OS website. Retrieved on April 27, 2006.
- ^ Newsforge: Linspire launches Freespire, open-sources CNR. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
- ^ http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Download_Freespire
- ^ http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?t=723
- ^ a b c d e http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Release_Notes_FS_2
- ^ Criticism of Freespire's use of sudo.
- ^ http://wiki.freespire.org/index.php/Freespire_Roadmap
