Lindows rises from the grave! Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0 Linux distros now available
About 16 years ago, a for-pay Linux distribution caused quite a stir all because of its name — Lindows. Yes, someone actually thought kicking the billion dollar hornets nest that is Microsoft by playing off of the "Windows" name was a good idea. To be honest, from a marketing perspective, it was brilliant — it got tons of free press. Microsoft eventually killed the Lindows name by use of money and the legal system, however. Ultimately, the Linux distro was renamed "Linspire." Comically, there was a Lindows Insiders program way before Windows Insiders!
After losing the Lindows name, the operating system largely fell out of the spotlight, and its 15 minutes of fame ended. After all, without the gimmicky name, it was hard to compete with free Linux distros. Not to mention, Richard Stallman famously denounced the OS for its non-free ways. The company eventually created a free version of its OS called Freespire, but by 2008, both projects were shut down by its then-owner, Xandros. Today, however, a new Linspire owner emerges — PC/OpenSystems LLC. And yes, Lindows is rising from the grave — as Freespire 3.0 and Linspire 7.0!
Of course not everybody in the Linux community loved Lindows at the time and other distros have anyway matured very well in the meantime.
