Freespire is actually the first version of San Diego, California-based Linspire’s code base to be available at no cost, but will include none of the proprietary licensed codecs, drivers, and code that have enabled Linspire to differentiate its Linspire OS as a desktop media operating system.
While licenses and code for these extensions will not be available with Freespire, the project will include details of what they are and where they can be found, enabling users who choose to do so to piece together a full operating system with those proprietary extensions.
If Linux is to gain mainstream acceptance, it needs to work with iPods and DVD players, and fully support hardware, such as 3D graphics cards, W-Fi, sound and printers, said Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony. Until there are viable open source replacements, Freespire set out to at least provide the option if legally and easily using certain proprietary codecs, drivers and software.
Freespire was originally the name of a private unofficial project created in late 2005 by Andrew Betts, a member of Linspire’s early-access Insiders program, to piece together a version of Linspire without the proprietary extensions.
That project was renamed SquiggleOS and was subsequently abandoned, although Betts will continue to be involved in the new Freespire as a member of the leadership board alongside Carmony and Ian Murdock, Debian founder and Free Standards Group chief technology officer, among others.
The creation of Freespire follows a trend among Linux distributors to return to the community-based development model. Red Hat Inc started it in July 2003 with the creation of the Fedora project, while Mandriva SA extending its Cooker open source development model to include the Community Edition in 2004 and Novell Inc launched openSUSE in January 2006.
A community forum for Freespire is already up and running, while the first beta release of the code base will be available in August.
