What Role Does Linspire Play?
From Freespire
The following information should help someone understand the role Linspire plays with the Freespire project.
- Linspire is the founder, maintainer and lead sponsor of the Freespire project.
- The Freespire project was started by Linspire to let the community participate in the development work for Linspire. Linspire, as the lead sponsor, will spend millions on the development, maintenance and deployment of Freespire. Linspire Letter on this topic.
- Linspire covers over 99% of the direct financial costs to maintain the Freespire project (web servers, bandwidth, full-time employees, etc.). The other 1% comes from sponsors and donations.
- Linspire provides community influence in the Freespire project by way of the three leadership boards and community organization.
- Even though Linspire plays a very important role, the ultimate governing body for the Freespire project is the Freespire Vision. This is the "constitution," as you will, for what Freespire strives to accomplish. (A constitution is designed to govern something, regardless of the leadership and who may be in charge at any particular time.) This is very important to understand, because if you don't believe in Freespire's vision, then chances are you will never be happy being part of the Freespire community. However, if you do believe in the vision, then there's a very good chance you'll be thrilled to be part of this community.
- Freespire is the open, community starting off point for Linspire. The Freespire fruit will not fall too far from the Linspire tree and visa versa. Linspire has always been about ease of use and incorporating any and all code to make things work better. Freespire shares that vision, but is just geared towards a different audience. Linspire is more for OEMs, consumers and those new to Linux, where as Freespire is more for hobbiests, developers and traditional Linux devotees.
- The name Freespire is by design related to the name Linspire (in addition to all the many other things Freespire means).
- The below graphic gives you a good overview of how Freespire relates to Linspire, as well as the broader Linux community.
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