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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.'"
Linspire has had some pretty good ideas when it comes to making Linux easy for the Windows user. But since it has not been free, I have been reluctent to recommend it to friends. I would like to see how this turns out...
For a linux distro that contains software which is not "free"
Is it just me, or do Linux Desktops seem to be following the Windows trend? They seem to be getting more bubbly. Take me back to the days of BlackBox
Proprietary software, as long as it doesn't make the system less free, is not necessarily bad.
For example a proprietary document system that uses open formats and has open APIs does very little to harm the user and potentially fills a niche that cannot be served by free software very well (eg handles certain legal compliance issues, which requires expensive insurance and research).
As long as you *could* write your own software to replace bits of the system, or interoperate with the system, then you dont necessarily have to for the benefit to be very real indeed.
A lot (although not all) of the stuff that comes with Linspire falls into this category.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Usually, when all is said and done, more is said than done.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
... but EasyUbuntu accomplishes the same thing (at least as far as the codecs and drivers go, I didn't RTFA) for Ubuntu and is as easy as the name suggests.
The work around is that there is no GPL violation. The Linux Kernel has an open API. If you conform to the API and have written all the code yourself, your code isn't subject to the GPL. The Kernel source is GPL. Any module can be whatever the author deems it.
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.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
What sometimes gets left out of this kind of discussion is that closed-source drivers are often of very low quality. Recently, I've been scanning in an old 400-page book on an HP scanner, using HP's closed-source MacOS 9 driver and scanning software. The MacOS X driver wasn't released until a couple of years after we bought the scanner, although they claimed it would be coming "real soon now." When the MacOS X driver finally was released, I found that it crashed so often as to make it useless. So here I am, in the year 2006, booting into MacOS 9 whenever I want to use the scanner. IIRC a driver is available for SANE, but I think I had dependency problems getting it to instal on my Linux box.
I scanned the first 100 pages or so, transferred them to the Linux box, and made sure I could read them. No problem. I finished scanning the book, transferred the rest of the pages to the Linux box. Oops --- can't read anything after page 250. Why? It turns out all those files are empty --- zero bytes in size. Why? Oh, the Mac's hard disk had apparently filled up, and the software didn't check for an I/O error when it wrote the files.
I'm not saying that OSS is always perfect and bug-free, but I doubt that this kind of low-quality code would ever have become widely used if it was open source.
I don't really want closed-source drivers for Linux. All I want is two things:
- I want to be able to find clear, accurate, up-to-date information on what devices have OSS drivers available, so I can buy hardware that's well supported.
- I want to be able to install the OSS drivers without a lot of hassles.
Really, #1 seems to be pretty well covered by the SANE folks (although the situation seems to be worse for wireless cards, where there's a ton of out-of-date info on the web, and I didn't find any canonical, well-maintained site that had all the info). #2 is probably slowly getting better too, as Ubuntu becomes more and more mature. I suspect that by the time I upgrade to the next Ubuntu, the scanner driver I need will already be included in SANE by default, and the dependency problems will be fixed.Find free books.
Nice quip, served you well.
You appear to be misinformed however. Freespire will be released in two distinct versions:
One containing entirely free software, and one containing proprietary codecs (paid for and licensed by Linspire).
The user gets to choose which he uses.
Hence the "Free" -- freedom of choice to opt into one of two free (as in beer) choices: a completely free (as in speech and beer) version, and a free (just as in beer) version.
Seems pretty free to me.
Any questions?
One eensy weensy little detail distinguishes Freespire from EasyUbuntu:
legality.
Freespire uses fully licensed codecs (paid for by Linspire), whereas EasyUbuntu takes the gray area route of not using fully legal stuff.
Since Linspire is footing the bill for the codecs, I think we can all see which choice is both more practical for the user and more ethical.
Two other versions are currently being designed. One, which requires that users give the company some of their intellectual property in exchange for additional software packages, and another, which allows users to exchange a few hours' work for a robust Linux-based system. The first version will be called Inspire; the second, Perspire.
The company is also thinking of donating free software to relatives of the recently deceased. This will naturally be called Expire.
>One eensy weensy little detail distinguishes Freespire from EasyUbuntu:
>
>legality.
Only in the U. S. of Eh. my friend. Up here in the Great White North, not to mention the rest of the free world, (NOT Australia since they've joined the US copyright tyranny) it is completely legal to use most of those codecs that might land an American butt in the slammer.
What I find most frustrating is that because people are so afraid of what the Americans will do, they intentionally cripple these distros. Grrrrr.