Does Linspire Violate the GPL?
 

I was a little upset when I read the license for Linspire recently. I was thinking about buying some of their stock when they go public, but I don't want to support a company that's ripping of Open Source code.

I don't have a problem with them selling their distro, or memberships to they package download site, but this license seems to restrict the users rights to freely (as in freedom) copy and distribute Linspire.

I'm not sure what to think about this one, so I though I'd get some opinions :)

http://www.linspire.com/lindows_products_license.php

"As discussed above, parts of the Linspire product are licensed under the GPL. Linspire fully supports the use and redistribution of those parts of Linspire which are covered under the GPL. There are, however, also 3rd-party components in Linspire which are not GPL (installer, CNR Technology, fonts, spell checker, Flash, Java, etc.).

Those who have obtained a copy of Linspire can find the source code for any of the GPL portions of Linspire in their my.linspire account or on the computer if they purchased Linspire pre-installed on a new computer. These individuals are free to modify and redistribute those GPL portions of Linspire found there. To honor our trademark and to avoid confusion among Linspire customers who wish to obtain a full and complete copy of Linspire, such products should not be called "Linspire," since they would be a different product (since they wouldn't have the non-GPL licensed parts, Linspire support, etc.)"


In other words, since there are some non-open source parts to the operating system, they can sell those pieces without needing to release source code. I don't know what exactly those pieces are; whether they're binaries that are legally licensed elsewhere and can't be GPL'd, or if they're drivers that companies gave them which they wouldn't for linux.

Linspire adheres to the GPL, as do all distros. The GPL is very clear about what you can and cannot do. All distro makers are well within their rights to have a mix of proprietary and OSS in their distros.

And this has been moved to the Linspire forum as that will give it the exposure it deserves.

one htink i like about linspire is that they give back money to the community. example, kde-look.org is funded by linspire, as well as ads.