Debunking Popular Myths about PC/OpenSystems LLC and Linspire

Today we are going to debunk some common myths about PC/OpenSystems LLC and Linspire that some people have.

Myth:  Linspire is a cash grab 
Reality:  We acquired what was left of Bridgeways Xandros offerings specifically for the technology that they had.. Upon examination, we found that many of their offerings had been superseded by technology that had developed after they left the business and instead of working with that we decided to start over and release Linspire. We could have called it Xandros Desktop and been done with it but we liked the clear distinction between the commercial offerings and the community-driven offering.

Myth: you just usurped the Linspire name 
Reality: No, we acquired full rights to the names, Linspire, Freespire and Xandros. We acquired the source and binary code of all the past releases, customer lists and a very incomplete copy of sales records and other important court filings. To answer the next question, no we will not release any information on Microsoft's settlement with Linspire Inc. We decided, under the advice of legal counsel, to honor the confidentiality of that agreement. We did honor ALL legacy sales that were made in anticipation of what would have been Linspire 7 under the umbrella of Xandros and Linspire Inc.

Myth: No one uses Linspire 
Reality: We already had a customer base and we migrated all of our customers over to the Linspire Enterprise. As with all other enterprise offerings we do have users who continue to use Black Lab Linux and we do make security updates available to those users honoring our commitment to Black Lab until 2026. But Linspire is used by all of our legacy and newer customers and continues to thrive in the home user and commercial space.

Myth:  Linspire continues to broadcast information to Microsoft Servers 
Reality: Microsoft collects NO customer information, system information or data from PC/OpenSystems LLC and Linspire. Linspire CE Office 365 does use Microsoft Office Online, Outlook, and OneDrive but users have to make applicable agreements to Microsoft themselves when they decide to use that release. Linspire itself comes preinstalled with the Microsoft repositories for Powershell, Skype, .NET Core and VS Code to make it easier for users who wish to use those offerings although Skype and Powershell are the ONLY Microsoft applications preinstalled. The ONLY communication Linspire as an OS product has with Microsoft servers is when it looks for updates to those applications. Any claims to the contrary are false and continues to demonstrate the incompetence and petty slander from anyone making them. Despite whether they call themselves “Dr.” or otherwise.

Myth: Linspire is an overpriced release of Ubuntu 
Reality: A lot of work goes into creating Linspire and making Linspire commercial ready. We offer service and support, preinstalled systems, preinstalled drives and install media. We charge according to the services customers require. The self-support release of Linspire is cheaper by far and we do not charge customers for services that they don't require or want. Our track record speaks for itself. We have operated as a business since 2008 and we have a customer retention rate of 98% which is a good record for any commercial software entity. In other words, a majority of our customers have been with us since 2008 approximately 11 years and they don't feel ripped off.

Myth:  Freespire has spyware and uses a survey to make money
Reality:  That is completely FALSE.  Freespire has no adware or any survey attached to it.  That incident came from a "reviewer" whom recompiled the release ISO for his "review" simply for the purpose of trying to paint Freespire and Linspire in a bad light.  That situation was discredited as a situation where that individual felt that we were making false claims regarding his favorite Linux distribution and the "news" site that carried that review continues to show their bias against commercial Linux distributions and guilt by not publishing any of our updates and releases.  We do encourage our users to download Freespire from our legitimate OFFICIAL servers as we do check the integrity of those available ISO's at least twice a week.

Myth:  PC/OpenSystems LLC doesn't care about the open-source community 
Reality: We do very much care about open source and sharing our technology and individuals working in it. We do develop a free and open release called Freespire and our core developers and contributors are encouraged to work on other open-source projects when/if they wish. Participation is not required but encouraged.

That covers most of the common myths and realities of Linspire. You can visit https://www.linspirelinux.com or https://www.pc-opensystems.com for more information.

Thank you.