David M Williams
Monday, 15 June 2009 13:20
Business IT -
Technology
Page 2 of 3
Back in the early years of this decade, Lindows was a controversial and secretive operating system and it transpired that Xandros was the basis of this system.
During his interview with DesktopLinux Bego said Xandros will “soon” make an announcement regarding the relationship between Xandros and Lindows. I’m not sure he ever did make such an announcement but many years later on July 1st 2008 Linspire, as Lindows was then known, was wholly acquired by Xandros. A month later Xandros CEO, Andreas Typaldos announced Linspire would be discontinued in favour of Xandros and the Linspire brand would cease to exist.
Careful observers will recognise that Lindows always was Xandros, and that Lindows survives today as Xandros.
As the Lindows name suggests, this Linux distro was produced with the goal of making a Microsoft Windows-like version of Linux. Specifically, founder Michael Robertson aimed to develop a Linux-based operating system that would natively run Microsoft Windows applications.
Originally, the WINE API was employed to achieve this goal, but the whole objective was soon abandoned and instead Lindows reason for being was attempting to make Linux applications easy to download, install and use.
Lindows developed a program called “Click ‘n’ run” or CNR, and was available for an annual fee.
Microsoft sued Lindows, Inc claiming that Lindows constituted an infringement of their Windows trademark but this case was rejected by the court because Microsoft had appropriated the term “Windows” based on windowing techniques already implemented by Xerox and Apple Computer many years prior.
Microsoft sought a retrial but eventually settled out of court, paying $20m and obtaining the Lindows trademark. Lindows changed their name to Linspire at that time.
Relations obviously eased between these two companies because in 2007 Linspire and Microsoft announced an interoperability collaboration agreement. This focused on compatibility between document formats, instant messaging, digital media, web search and patent covenants.
The agreement was
heavily criticised by Groklaw as being against the spirit of the GNU General Public License. In fact, Groklaw asserted that the agreement was worse than that between Microsoft and Novell and almost amounted to relinquishing all the freedom’s Linux delivers.
As part of the agreement terms users were not permitted to share the software with others or modify it without losing Microsoft’s promise not to sue. The software came at a cost in the first instance, with fees to Linspire, but the covenant required a payment to Microsoft also.
Linspire absorbed the initial fees to Microsoft, but future upgrades required a payment to Microsoft (or losing your protection.)
Effectively, if you were a Linspire user you may as well have been using Microsoft Windows for all the rights and permissions available to you. You could not copy the software. You could not modify it. You could not share it. You could not improve it or distribute it or do “unauthorised” things, whatever that meant.
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