An Early Look at Freespire Linux

An anonymous reader writes "DesktopLinux.com takes an early look at Freespire Linux in a recent article. Linspire will be releasing their first version of Freespire, the first community Linux distribution to include many third-party proprietary codecs, drivers, and software. From the article: 'While I still have my doubts about the long-term wisdom of using proprietary software and drivers with Linux, I must say that if you feel you need to use such programs, Freespire makes it much easier than any other Linux distribution. And, when is all said and done, that's really what Freespire is all about -- making Linux as easy as possible for users.'"

Comments

Re:non-GPL Kernel modules

[ardor]

It is illegal to distribute non-GPL binary kernel modules (ask any kernel developer), and Freespire should respect the GPL since they are a Linux company.

Well, the actual nVidia/ATI kernel module IS GPLed. It acts as layer between the kernel and the binary blob. This layer has an open API, which is used by the blob. Thus, the blob uses the kernel, it does not extend it. The extension comes from the GPLed layer.

The real issue is that nVidia & ATI use GPL code from other parts of the kernel in their drivers. This is the only issue, because the way I described above makes binary blobs perfectly legal.