So, what has happened since?
I haven't seen any change on the Linspire site since a Q&A with the Xandros CEO from back on July 7th. I also don't see any news on the Freespire site, and it's been over a year since Freespire 2.0 was released and nearly a year from the release date of Linspire 6.0. Even the Xandros website doesn't have anything new to report, other than the same FAQ from early July.
What I have noticed, however, is that Linspire, Freespire and CNR.com all continue to shrink.
Xandros did make this bad move. An attempt, I suppose, by Andy Typaldos to try and show some solidarity from Ubuntu. Has Andy even tried Ubuntu? Is he paying attention to the work they're doing?I'd be curious to hear from any Linspire, Freespire or CNR.com users (what few of you remain) if I've missed something? Or is it looking like I was right in my prediction?
Kevin
Posts
9 comments:
I've been waiting to see what you thought about this,
It appears that Linspire is dead, Freespire is going to be based on Debian, and Xandros is going to be based on Freespire ala Redhat/Fedora.
Ah, I had missed that. Thanks. I added my opinion of that news to the main post, as it's a key move (and a very bad one, IMHO).
Kevin
I heard a rumor today (from a former Linspire employee) that Xandros paid $2.5M for Linspire and that some of that cash went to Larry Kettler and Cary Harper, but the rest all went straight to Robertson. I can't confirm or deny that rumor (as I've said all along, it will likely take a lawsuit to get to the truth), but I thought I'd share what I had heard, for what it's worth.
IF this is true, then Robertson sure tanked the company in the last year since I left. I had brought to him an offer of a lot more than that for the company when I left, and I would have paid a lot more than $2.5M had they asked me before he ran off and sold it to Xandros in their midnight deal.
Robertson didn't seem to care at all about the minority shareholders. Why didn't he shop Linspire around? He knew there was an offer for a lot more than that for the company just a year ago. Why didn't he see if I and others were interested in buying it? You would think Robertson would have checked with other potential buyers before just doing this low-ball deal with Xandros...UNLESS he just wanted to bury everything as soon as possible to hide some shady transactions?
Again, this is all speculation on my part, based on what I'm hearing and my experience with Robertson. It's a shame Robertson doesn't just hold a shareholder meeting and tell us what really happened. What's he hiding?
Kevin
For fun i just ran a who is on linspire and others ....
infor for linspire.com
Registrant:
Linspire, Inc.
9333 Genesee Suite 300
San Diego, California 92121
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: LINSPIRE.COM
Created on: 15-Jan-04
Expires on: 15-Jan-10
Last Updated on: 12-Jan-07
Administrative Contact:
Redracted, Name domains@linspire.com
Linspire, Inc. 5960 Cornerstone Court West Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92121
,
United States
858 587-6700
---
CNR.com
Registrant:
Linspire, Inc.
9333 Genesee Suite 300
San Diego, California 92121
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: LINSPIRE.COM
Created on: 15-Jan-04
Expires on: 15-Jan-10
Last Updated on: 12-Jan-07
Administrative Contact:
Sanborn, John domains@linspire.com
Linspire, Inc. 5960 Cornerstone Court West Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92121
,
United States
858 587-6700
---
CNR. com
Registrant:
Linspire, Inc
5960 Cornerstone Court West
Suite 200
San Diego, California 92121
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: CNR.COM
Created on: 30-Aug-94
Expires on: 29-Aug-10
Last Updated on:
Administrative Contact:
Inc, Linspire domains@linspire.com
Linspire, Inc
5960 Cornerstone Court West
Suite 200
San Diego, California 92121
United States
8585876700 Fax --
Technical Contact:
Inc, Linspire domains@linspire.com
Linspire, Inc
5960 Cornerstone Court West
Suite 200
San Diego, California 92121
United States
8585876700
----
also similar info is there for freespire.org.
the domains have never been transferd...
and the main domain is still listed with the "emerald city" location....
strange....
I gave up on the *spires some time back. There are so many other quality distros (and companies) I saw no point in continuing to back a wounded horse. I have seen nothing to make me believe Xandros would change things. Sort of like a two people who can't swim trying to save each other.
The Freepsire Forums are no longer existent (im sure this really irritated a bunch of the Freespire users -- Dr. Ken Jones comes to mind).
Freespire is being dragged back into Debian from Ubuntu (MEPIS did this some time ago as well).
Im sure this is exactly what Micheal Roberton Intended.
Fun.
I don't think Robertson cares one way or another the roots of Freespire.
I think the return to Debian was based on Larry Kettler (ex Linspire CEO, now Xandros employee) becoming unhappy that Ubuntu never did embrace CNR, and Andy (Xandros' CEO) still trying to spit against the wind of momentum for Ubuntu.
Losing Freespire to Debian won't exactly hurt Ubuntu. Given there are virtually no Freespire users left, I think we can all file that under "who cares?"
Kevin
The only reason I still have Freespire or Linspire installed (I'm not even sure which) is that I didn't realize how bad things had gotten. I'm not going to remove it since it still works, but certainly my next system won't be a Xandros one. I have been using Ubuntu-and while KDE is wonderful I'm at a loss when it comes to a distribution that is half decent with it. Ubuntu on the other hand has made major improvements to Gnome and integrated it into a distribution that works. Can't say that for Fedora, OpenSUSE, or anybody else. I knew things weren't going too well with Linspire many many months ago when I turned down a job offer. I thought that something was still happening though. At least when 5.0 came out and was crap-the updates fixed things. Nothing can be said about freespire 2/linspire 6 which were both downgrades from linspire 5. How you loose the wifi applet that was excellent in 5 only to replace it with crap is beyond me. Not to mention no improvements. CNR.com didn't even happen. Larry is directly to blame for that failure. I know at least two people were found who could have made CNR.com happen. Larry screwed it up twice. One person was even going to do it for basically nothing.
i know this is a old post. but damn i miss freespire. it was prob the best *nix os i had ever used.
Post a Comment