In the name of honest disclosure, I must say that I never directly
observed Linspire in use, this was relayed to me in conversation with
my stepfather.  I did burn a Freespire LiveCD to test-boot on my
machine, so that I could give him relevant advice if needed.  Didn't
see anything out of the ordinary there, but I didn't tesy-drive it
very much.  That said, let us continue...

--- In [email protected], "kazman1914" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi Gary,
> 
> After reading the info on the Linspire site, I had the impression that
> the reason you pay about $50 for the CD...

He didn't get it on CD, he bought a whole PC with Linspire
pre-installed.  I don't know which company was selling the PC, but
it's probably Google-able.

> ...was for the licenses for plug
> ins and other functionality gained via the installation of otherwise
> non-free components.  But what you say below suggests that this is not
> the case.  

My stepfather complained that the "OEM" install was not very
functional OOTB, and that when he went online to the Linspire
repository to download the necessary things, the fees were demanded at
that point.  He felt after spending $300 or so for a "pre-installed"
(and presumably functional) PC, getting a crippled OS that immediately
demands more money was more than just a little disturbing!  This was
his FIRST venture into Linux, and it may well have put him off altogether!

Mind you, he needed to be able to draft documents with mathematic
notation and such, not quite the "average" user who just wants to read
pdf's and listen to mp3's...any proprietary video driver or hardware
issue *should* have been dealt with *before* the machine was shipped!

I did a little poking around, and I have to wonder if stepdad didn't
buy this --> http://www.linux.com/feature/52952

Can't be sure, he hasn't named names.

> That is troubling, to say the least.  It's bad enough
> having to pay for what should be freeware, but to then have to pay
> every time you want to use a program that has non-free components,
> well, that's not the Linux way, nor the Ubuntu way, as I understood it.
> 
> ~Sean

D*mn right it's not the Linux way, and I've assured my stepfather of
that, but I'm not sure I've convinced him...



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