[mdlug] Linspire to Become Ubuntu-Based

[Jeff Hanson]

Canonical Ltd. and Linspire, Inc. today announced plans for a
technology partnership that integrates core competencies from each
company into the other's open source Linux offerings.

Linspire will transition from Debian to Ubuntu as the base for their
Linspire and Freespire desktop operating systems. This will mean that
Linspire users will benefit from Ubuntu's fast moving development
cycles and focus on usability. The Freespire community will start
seeing early releases of Freespire 2.0 based on Ubuntu in the first
quarter of 2007, with the final release expected in the 2nd quarter of
2007, following the official release of Ubuntu 7.04 in April.

"Ubuntu is the most successful community-based Linux project to date,"
said Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire. "They have done a fantastic job
with the development community and creating tools for utilizing their
technology. It made a tremendous amount of sense to partner with
Canonical and begin basing our desktop Linux offerings on Ubuntu."

Linspire will continue combining proprietary drivers, codecs and
applications with open source software by default in their operating
systems. This approach, unique among Linux distributions, offers
out-of-the-box support for a broader range of software, hardware and
multimedia file types than the Debian or Ubuntu baseline alone.
Linspire will continue adding other unique features that are important
to its users and that make the Linspire desktop Linux easy to use and
a turn-key solution for OEMs.

"This technology partnership goes a long way in advancing and unifying
the Linux desktop," said Carmony. "Linux faces many challenges as it
competes in a world historically dominated by Microsoft Windows, so
there is plenty of work to go around and we’re pleased to be able to
offer differentiation and choice, while reducing fragmentation."

"The very nature of Free Software development is based on sharing and
collaboration," commented Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. "The
less time, energy and resources Canonical and Linspire spend
duplicating efforts, the more time we'll all have for unique
improvements and innovation. We're pleased to see another key Linux
distribution incorporating our work with Ubuntu."

In addition, Ubuntu users will gain access to the Linspire CNR
e-commerce and software delivery technology. Linspire recently
announced plans to make their CNR technology available for other Linux
distributions in addition to their own Linspire and Freespire
offerings. Today's announcement confirms that Ubuntu will be the first
distribution to be supported.

Beginning with Ubuntu's 7.04 release in April of this year, Ubuntu
users will be able to use the CNR client to download and install
commercial programs and proprietary media drivers with one click of
the mouse. In the future, Canonical plans to integrate aspects of the
CNR technology so the purchase of commercial software is
straightforward for desktop users.

"Over the past few years, Linspire has refined their e-commerce and
software delivery technology with their CNR service," continued
Shuttleworth. "For some time, we've been planning enhancements to
Ubuntu's commercial software management, and it was only natural to
take advantage of Linspire's new, open CNR technology rather than
duplicating that work."

Ubuntu users will continue to have the same repository and
installation options as before, but will enjoy expanded capabilities
with the incorporation of the new CNR technology features such as
access to a range of commercial consumer applications, multimedia
support and games.

"This partnership will enable us to provide commercial software
products and services such as legally licensed DVD and media players
to users who want them." noted Steve George, Director of Support and
Services for Canonical.

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