Submitted by DistroWatch has brought to light an apparant fraud by Freespire. “Several readers have emailed us to let us know that Linspire has launched what can only be classified as an attempt to tamper with our page hit ranking statistics by trying to artificially inflate the page hit ranking figures for its new community distribution – Freespire. Upon investigation, it turned out that both linspire.com and nvu.com had been deceivingly redirecting visitors to the Freespire page on DistroWatch and that the default home page of Firefox in the latest build of Freespire had also been set to the same page.” A thread on the Freespire forums about this issue is quite heated.
Make no mistake – I wanted to believe freespire was going to be ‘linspire doing the right thing’ but all I can say now is ‘same old, same old’!
I think freespire was the one final chance at being something other than a company and I am truly disappointed that they blew it. (in my book at least)
“Make no mistake – I wanted to believe freespire was going to be ‘linspire doing the right thing’ but all I can say now is ‘same old, same old’!”
You’re full of it mate. You take a pop at Linspire/Freespire every change you get.
You submitted this and I bet you were rubbing your hands in glee at yet another opportunity to be the sour grape in the bunch.
So what. The distowatch rankings are a scam anyways. There are so many things wrong with their method of gathering information that any statistics that they derive from the data is worthless. If you want an example of how worthless it is check out where Redhat is on distowatch. Comin’ in at 29, right behind Nexenta and Frugalware. ‘Cause we all know that no one uses Redhat. It is not even in the top ten amongst Linux distributions.
If you really want to see what Linux distributions are popular it would be better to check out Alexa or Google Trends.
Edited 2006-09-05 21:00
Bingo
Even Ladislav of Distrowatch says emphatically to not put any stock in their hit rankings.
But yet we have this big to-do about the ethics of Freespire’s linking into their page on Distrowatch.
<sarcasm>
STOP THE PRESSES!!!! FREESPIRE IS BALLOT STUFFING!!! SHAME ON THEIR LACK OF ETHICS!!!! ARRRRRGGHHHH!!! LINSPIRE IS EVIL!!!
</sarcasm>
C’mon. Let’s have a more important argument, like, say, the names of Snow White’s seven dwarves, or the color of Tiger Woods’ shirt during the PGA, or something.
ranks right up there with Apple Deaths(tm).
…from KC seems to be “we f’ed up, sorry, there you go, fixed”, but I ask you, what kind of humongous (but honest) mistake turns http://www.L-I-N-S-P-I-R-E.com into http://www.D-I-S-T-R-O-W-A-T-C-H.com?
No originally he claimed complete ignorance and until all the others were pointed out…well he let the mob attack and poke fun so he could come in with his smoke and mirrors and clear it all up.
I mean come on…. the LINSPIRE PROUD LEAD SPONSOR button on the NVU website goes to distrowatch?
Edited 2006-09-04 18:43
As soon as I start thinking, maybe I AM too harsh on these guys. Nevermind, they are every bit the piece of garbage I always thought they were.
exactly… me three
…recommended someone check out Linspire (before the Freespire development, even).
Ouch.
Yuck, even.
Edited 2006-09-04 18:41
Did you even read the forum thread? It’s all explained right there. There was no conspiracy or anything, and Distrowatch rankings were not affected by this “error” or whatever. Kevin himself explains this quite well.
I would ask if you read the thread…. Since you obviously got it wrong also.
DeanLinkous is the one who it wrong and has done nothing but try to hurt the Freespire project since he arrived there with all his negativity, accusations, etc. He has absolutely no credibility.
Yeah, because if they *had* been intentionally trying to stuff the ballot, Kevin Carmony would of course be disinterested and impartial enough to cheerfully admit this fact. The fact that he instead says it was some kind of honest mistake on the part of a nameless, faceless employee proves beyond doubt that it wasn’t an attempt to stuff the ballot.
Great sarcasm there!
I ussually don’t jump to conclusions when it comes to issues like this. I don’t really care about it at all, if they make a good product, I’ll use it anyway.
However, this is so blatantly mindless I find it extremely hilarious.
If they made one?
The issue itself is only part of it…
Edited 2006-09-04 18:43
…that doesn’t get my business: the ones that think “there’s one born every minute.” Maybe there is, but I ain’t one of ’em, thanks.
If you haven’t read the forum thread, you aren’t qualified to have an opinion on the matter. So please, shut up.
Not sure I’m in a position to judge whether Freespire is actually the bad guy here, or if it’s just something silly. But I really wonder what is so extraordinary about the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking?
I admit, I visit DW regularly to see if there’s some news about some distros I had left, like Suse or Ubuntu, and I enjoyed the podcast Weekly (the Milo version at least).
But frankly I couldn’t care less about the “page hit ranking”. I always had the impression that this meant a lot of curious Linux newcomers were redirected by some people to DW, and as they had only heard of Ubuntu before anyway because of the free shipit disks, they’d check out Ubuntu.
And some year ago, when I saw that Mepis was somewhere in the top-5 I thought, what on earth is Mepis ? I remember thinking they, or their fans, had probably messed around with it.
But if your business has confidence in something as manipulable as a page hit ranking, something’s wrong with you.
And let’s not forget, mr. DistroWatch himself has always said that the Page Hit Ranking is nothing to base anything on.
Might be time to get rid of it.
This is not something to be proud of, in any case. People already make fun of Linux distroitis.
Well, it’s rather like when a dictator fixes an election. (Not that I’m comparing distrowatch to a dictator, by the way.) Nobody really trusts the results of an election run by a dictator, but when the dictator wins 95 or 97% of the vote, it’s taken as an indication of (a) how far the dictator is willing to go to “prove himself”; and (b) how far out of touch he is that he can quite happily quote himself as having 95% of the vote. I don’t know about you, but I’m sceptical of ever being able to get 95% of any group anywhere to agree on [i]anything.
…First Steve Irwin dies, then Freespire “cheats at the polls.”
…First Steve Irwin dies
Completely off-topic, but with my blessing: yes, indeed, that was damn horrible news this morning
. I’m a huge fan of Steve Irwin. I wrote about it on my blog:
http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com/2006/09/04/381/
Any truth to the rumour Elton John is re-writing a song for him?
…That really wasn’t such a bad thread… I’ve seen worse flame-ons on knitting and crocheting forums. It is weird how that link could have gotten there, but eh, no real harm done… except for their reputation.
“is weird how that link could have gotten there”
not one link!
one default home page of the browser on new installs
a link from the linspire website
a button and a link from the NVU website
a couple other links
The links were not just a “click here to go to distrowatch and throw us a bone” but where instead deceiving links that stated GET FRESPIRE or LINSPIRE – PROUD LEAD SPONSOR and so forth…
Edited 2006-09-04 19:15
Some express URL’s were in fact pointing people to the Freespire’s DistroWatch page. As soon as this was discovered, by the Freespire community itself, it was changed. There was no outside pressure brought to bear, the community fixed this problem in less than 24 hours of it being discovered.
Ladislav (owner of DistroWatch) said this is a very common thing, and has been done by pretty much every Linux community at one time or another. However, in over Five years Linspire has NEVER been involved with or accused of something like this. (Which is pretty apparent, because Linspire has always been very low on the DistroWatch charts. =) When it happened this one time with Freespire project, the links were immediately removed.
It couldn’t have had too drastic of an impact, Freespire is still #32 on the DistroWatch homepage chart. This is a good example how an open source community policies its own behavior.
Kevin Carmony
CEO, Linspire, Inc.
Edited 2006-09-04 19:13
Who in the community fixed these problems? Unless you count linspire employees as the community?
“However, in over Five years Linspire has NEVER been involved with or accused of something like this. (Which is pretty apparent, because Linspire has always been very low on the DistroWatch charts. =) When it happened this one time with Freespire project, the links were immediately removed. ”
So it’s only wrong if you get caught?
FTA:Several readers have emailed us to let us know that Linspire has launched what can only be classified as an attempt to tamper with our page hit ranking statistics by trying to artificially inflate the page hit ranking figures for its new community distribution – Freespire.
“Several readers” Obviously you didn’t RTFA either.
Edited 2006-09-04 19:29
Linspire never did it in five years. Our abysmal chart position that we’ve always had on DistroWatch makes that pretty clear. =)
Kevin
Mr Carmony,
Whether or not someone else does it is completely irrelevant to the issue. Basically everybody does some speeding in his life (and in Europe, it’s more of a rule than an exception, actually), but that does not actually make it right. I speed a lot too (I like things that go fast), but you will not hear me complain when in an honest way, I get caught. I sure as hell will not try to cover my behind by saying, “oh who cares, everybody does it, so it really is not wrong”. Because it is.
Now, Like I said in a previous comment, I really don’t care about this at all– Heck, even if Freespire hacked the Distrowatch page and put Freespire atop the rankings, I still would not give a damn. Even though I’m not a user of Lin/Freespire, I find it a very solid, well-built distribution (I reviewed 5.0 at my previous employer, a copy supplied by your press dpt.), and this issue won’t change a bit about that. I try to seperate people/companies from products (just like the fact that many celebreties are idiots does not make their films/albums/etc. any worse), because I have to deal with not the people/companies, but the products they make.
However, that does not negate the fact that this thing happened, and since you guys are ‘teh 3vil’ to many anyway, it is just plain STUPID. No, worse– it is MORONIC, at the same time being outragiously hilarious– no offence.
The reason I, as editor, decided to publish a link to this on OSAlert, is that many people DO care about the companies making the products they are using. I belong to a minority; the majority of our readership cares about the companies/people behind their products; hence I want to inform them of any good/bad things those companies/people do.
In short, the fact you addmited the error is great, and I applaud that; however, do not try to lessen the ‘offence’ by pointing fingers. It just isn’t very posh.
EDIT: typo fixes.
Edited 2006-09-04 19:49
Get a f*ing grip already! What is it about *spire that makes people react like this?
So the fact that other distros have “cheated” too does not excuse Freespire. Alright. Then why has Freespire been singled out in this case? Why not critizise all the distros that have cheated?
BTW, i am using Ubuntu right now, but i am tempted to switch to Freespire just to spite all you hypocrites!
Never heard of this happening before; which distros have been guilty of it?
The one time I want to mod Thom up, I see the + and – buttons are there but still don’t work.
Only moderators can mod the moderators (or something like that) – or I’d mod his post up too.
Never mind – you can mod up Kevin Carmony if you really want to – Oh no you can’t, all his posts seem to be on 5 already, so they must be wonderfully true
The issue is one thing. The means to which they are willing to go to get a high ranking on a site they have dismissed as being pointless and worthless is a statement of character that speaks volumes.
They have done this with other things too. A reviewer has negative things to say, he becomes a ‘ubuntu fan boy’ or a ‘paid stooge’ or ‘obviously bias’ but when that reviewer later has good things to say he is all of a sudden offering a ‘fair review’ and is ‘obviously a astute individual’ and ‘writing fairly and unbiased’! Too Funny!
Sit and read the linspire forums for a while. Participate in the group for a while. Go ahead. See for yourself.
The president of the company trying to use smoke and mirrors to say that it would not affect the outcome is another issue. He had to just be blowing smoke and counting on everyone being ignorant to how a website works. He also claims it was just a slip up when later it was shown that there is no way any of that could be a slip up. As was pointed out in another thread, if the president is that clueless to what is going on in the company are you sure you want to use that product? Are you sure you trust anything from them?
One of the worst was the manner it was handled. No mistake is owned up to, only excuses made and other things pointed out like how everyone else does it or it doesn’t make a difference.
The users will continue to swear it was all unintentional and it is just us mean trolls bashing them and their distro because it is better than everyone elses especially ubuntu.
Everyone hates linspire for no reason, they haven’t done anything. Nothing like this, nothing like that atkins diet novell stuff, nothing like saying that ubuntu must pay people to spread ubuntu and so forth.
I would encourage all to spend time on the Freespire forums. I’m confident you’ll find it a great place.
Kevin
In all honesty, I can’t say I am angry with whoever is responsible for this. This sort of thing happens all the time…
From post by Ladislav, owner of DistroWatch.
http://forum.freespire.org/showpost.php?p=14383&postcount=53
That doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make Linspire/Freespire as evil as some love making us out to be.
Kevin
Now now…. is that ALL he said? You should know I would post the rest as well.
Here are my favorite parts of that SAME POST as well
“Somebody at Linspire decided to sent some traffic to DistroWatch (which was a very noble idea), probably in order to drive Freespire up the page hit ranking stats (which was _not_ a very noble idea),”
“Kevin is also wrong in assuming that these are all innocent re-directions that have nothing to do with the page hit statistics on DistroWatch. As a matter of fact, each hit from a unique IP address is recorded as a hit, irrespective of the referrer (unless there is no referrer, in which case the hit is not counted – this is to make sure that no hits are generated by those who set up their home pages to one of the distribution pages on DistroWatch). So while setting up the default home page on Freespire to DistroWatch had no effect on the counter, linking to DistroWatch from linspire.com and nvu.com did increase the page hits considerably”
“The current Freespire issue looks to me as an obvious attempt to manipulate the DistroWatch page hit ranking. Several people have confirmed that the default home page on the most recent build of Freespire goes to the Freespire page on DistroWatch. The front page of Linspire.com links to the same page with a “Get Freespire Now” graphic (even as I write this, despite Kevin’s assurances above that this has been rectified) – a rather deceiving redirection. There is a similarly deceiving graphic on nvu.com. I might be wrong, but the above suggests that this is hardly a mistake, but rather a concerted effort to increase the Freespire page hit ranking on DistroWatch.
smooooke and mirrrors….
That’s why I posted the link to “all he said.”
Paranoia will destroy ya. =)
Kevin
Please take the cheesy cliche’s and smart ass comments back to your own forums. I for one am a bit disgusted by the fact that the freaking ceo of Linspire still does not fully grasp that this is not a joke, but a serious breech of ethics.
Nevermind, I forgot you guys don’t know anything about ethics. You ARE the ceo of the same company that took Mozilla Composer, rebadged it as NVU and then pretended like you built it completely from scratch. Yes, the last comment was completely off-topic but if you’re going to come over here and act stupid by sticking your ass into the fire with no credible comments, you might as well get burned.
Poor abdavidson still swears it is a new project, the CEO said it was!
Don’t forget these products
Comparesoft
http://www.comparesoft.com/
recognize any of that software?
OOOFF
(open office and firefox)
http://forum.linspire.com/viewtopic.php?t=398304
Comparesoft
http://www.comparesoft.com/
recognize any of that software?
Yes I do. Man it never ends with these guys. Apparently ethics is just another 6 letter word to them.
“Poor abdavidson still swears it is a new project, the CEO said it was!
”
Why on earth did you bring my name up with that rant?
You have ranted, raved, and trolled over and over.
Not letting go, you then go on about “I’m leaving, no I’m leaving, no I’m really leaving now” on that forum while sticking around and around and around. Make up your mind, make a decision and stick to it.
Then here you’ve gone on some “Poor me, my posts are being modded down… *sniff* I’m so brave, just mod me, not the others!”
The melodrama oozes from you.
I WAS leaving, yet if someone asks me a question or continues to post something as a response then certainly that is as good as asking me to respond?
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=15419&comment_id=150572
Quote=abdavidson “you obviously don’t know anything. Linspire did found, does maintain and is the lead sponsor of NVu.”
Why on earth are you bringing up that? How relevant is that to this?
And there isn’t anything incorrect with what I said; hell the guy who was doin the work even said as much.
That aside, I’m going to do what you apparently can’t do though and give and keep a promise.
I’m not responding to your ridiculous anti-Linspire ranting anymore.
deanlinkous, I’m glad you posted that. I totally forgot it was this guy who had posted a link to a site refuting his own claims in that thread, while telling me I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.
And yes, I laughed as hard the second time I read it as I did the first =)
i think you and deanlinkous are the same person…
therefore unless you can prove otherwise, you will be deemed nothing more than a troll from here on out.
i think you and kevin carmony and hqlinux and eugenia are the same person…wait I also forgot thom…
wow!
You know, you’re just fantastic. You said you were going away and yet you return. Why is that? I thought you said you had enough.
You can go ahead and think i’m Eugenia, Thom, Kevin Carmony and HQLinux all you want. But at least I’m not answering my own posts with another account that I created. You might as well just go and troll Freespire forums more.
And before you call me a *spire or Carmony shill, I don’t like linspire, I don’t like Freespire. I have no interest in running desktop linux.
All this has done for me is watch the companies actions from now on before placing judgement. This is the first real screw up that I’ve seen that makes this company questionable in their actions. If they screw up again, then I will pass judgement. Until then, i’m just watching.
You, on the other hand, make posts that do nothing but slam a company. I mean, don’t you have a life? Just get over it.
more lies…
Can you show me where I said I was leaving. Oh no, this is my site too.
Keep believeing those multiple account stories, one day it will be you they accuse of that.
If this is the only one you seen then you obviously missed some of my posts.
I’m very much not deanlinkous you f–king moron. There has only ever been, will ever be, ONE kernelpanicked.
Then here you’ve gone on some “Poor me, my posts are being modded down… *sniff* I’m so brave, just mod me, not the others!”
I think you need to look up the definiton of trolling and ranting. Using quotation marks while making up stuff and sensationalizing those things would probably be more of a rant, rave, and troll than anything I have done.
Um, NVu is a good thing. Nuff said.
I think it only fair that we also point out that this “story” was submitted by Deanlinkous. Those on the Freespire forums know him well, and quickly fixing the problem isn’t enough for him, he seems to want to make sure and pound Freespire into the ground any chance he gets.
He has every right to say anything he wishes, but it’s only fair that those on this site know it’s quite apparent to the Freespire community that this is someone with a serious ax to grind.
Microsoft loves this drama among Linux and open source.
Kevin
Yes that word is a favorite of them also. Anyone that doesn’t have blue/green flags are trolls.
Anyone that knows me also knows that I gave a fair shot at freespire and spread the word that CNR was free and a step in the right direction and one I hoped would continue. I truly meant that! You blew it not me! Go ahead shovel all the blame over to me….oh it is all that deanlinkous doing, that evil troll making us look bad. No dude YOU made yourself loook bad nobody else!
Edited 2006-09-04 19:37
i say to you…
who cares!
i for one do not. obviously it had zero effect on the distrowatch rankings (which mean squat to me). I use several distros (freespire is one of them). this kind of thing (the way the community reacts to insignificant things) makes me want to quit using linux all together( been using it since 1996 or so). from the outside looking in. It appears to non linux users we are always in-fighting amongst ourselves. It would appear that we do nothing but compete with one another on which is better (a my dad can beat up your dad kidna deal). We have elitist attitudes about how this is so much better than that. If i were curious about linux and i cam across this silly stuff on a Operating system news site I would run the other way fast. IMHO we should spend more time working to improve Open Source software and our distros of choice rather than flame about on insignificant matters. The bottom line is: What effect did this actually have on the rankings ? If it would have spiked to #1: what effect would that have had ?
Im sure that if you are a veteran Linux user you know that you do not pay attention to the rankings on distrowatch. The information on distrowatch that is the most valuable are the reviews and news not the rankings. I for one vote they be removed. Im not siding with either side… i think that if it wasnt an oversight that a public apology should be issued by the one who put the link there, and i think also that the ones that are griping and moaning over such a trivial thing should actually do something to contribute to a project or to their distro instead of wasting valuable news space and time with such a silly complaint. After all im sure that several distros point browsers to various pages on the net for various reasons. I assume that no one faults firefox for having their own google landing page (which im sure can generate ad sense revenue at your expense).
You yes YOU do not care because you are one of the supporters. Yes, that is another one of those things that linspire supporters love to bring up is that those elitist snobs are upset that someone is making linux easy to use and they don’t like it.
I can find almost that EXACT statement in the forums!
keep in mind i am not just a freespire supporter… I support several projects.. i use several distros… i contribute cash/code/resources and positive helpful discussion when i can. what do you contribute besides projecting a bad impression of Linux to the public ? (not just freespire… since this reflects not only on Freespire but also it reflects on Linux for those who are potentially thinking of switching)
btw:
did i ever say anything about an elitist snob being upset because Freespire/Linspire is trying to make Linux easy to use ?
Perhaps i have… please refresh my memory
Edited 2006-09-04 19:43
Yeah, the Linux community coming down on someone for possibly being overzealous. Now we’ve heard it all.
Since the general feel of the Linux posters here is the Linspire/Freespire is a Bad Thing; that must mean they are doing something right.
The stallmanites that infest the OSAlert boards also hold OS X and BeOS in great contempt and I personally think both are fantastic and both are ahead of Linux in MANY aspects. This tells me Linspire may actually be worth looking into. Linux user around these parts tend to feel threatened when a perceived competitor shows superiority in some/any aspect over their distro-of-choice.
Edited 2006-09-04 19:45
Yeah, the Linux community coming down on someone for possibly being overzealous. Now we’ve heard it all.
You speak as if “the Linux community” were made up of clones. It’s not.
Since the general feel of the Linux posters here is the Linspire/Freespire is a Bad Thing; that must mean they are doing something right.
Umm, no. A lot of Linux users might not like Linspire because they feel their distribution is trying to be something Linux isn’t, and/or because it includes proprietary software, but that is WAY different from disagreeing with ballot stuffing. If that’s “doing something right,” which dictator is YOUR hero?
The stallmanites that infest the OSAlert boards also hold OS X and BeOS in great contempt
Am I a Stallmanite? Yes. Do I hold OS X OR BeOS in contempt? No.
and I personally think both are fantastic and both are ahead of Linux in MANY aspects This tells me Linspire may actually be worth looking into.
This tells us your reasoning is faulty.
Linux user around these parts tend to feel threatened when a perceived competitor shows superiority in some/any aspect over their distro-of-choice.
No, but we don’t hesitate to call bullshit on posts such as this.
as stated, I give….UNCLE UNCLE
please come to my house and kill me because this is just insane…
think whatever, do whatever, act however, change the focus, shift the meanings, say I am someone else, I am someone who you fired or something…
please make up any lies you want
I now know why nobody says anything about linspire because if you do they will point every *spire users finger at you and call you every name in the book and twist enough to make other believe it too…
I am done, i am shaking from these actions I have endured and I honestly cannot take it it is insane
“Microsoft loves this drama among Linux and open source”
Exactly, and it’s users like deanlinkous that Microsoft loves! Heck he is most likely a diehard MS User or works for MS!
Edited 2006-09-04 20:01
Yeah, I heard we’re not supposed to excuse what’s wrong, and O was Freespire naughty.
But it gets less entertaining when people start looking for vengeance like a bunch of hyenas.
I mean, Who Got Killed?
We are talking about a (so far) marginal Linux OS here.
Elsewhere, people are fighting over 911 conspiracies, people still get killed everyday in Iraq, Iran might be next, America’s economy’s might well be on the verge of collapse, Israel’s been daisycutting all over the place in Lebanon, and Sudan is still worse than all that.
I’m so sorry for sliding off-topic. Now unless someone can point out where the victim is – I mean some of you guys give the impression that Freespire’s killing off the GPL or something – give us a break.
In the Linspire forums thread they pretty much roasted deanlinkous, saying he was basically an outsider and his point didn’t matter. The funny thing is, the Trol^H^H^HLinspire communtiy seems to have had no issue coming over here and signing up a bunch of accounts to continue the anti-anti-*spire party.
kernelpanicked, are you really this much of an ass off the forums, or is a persona you put on to satisfy some need?
“kernelpanicked, are you really this much of an ass off the forums, or is a persona you put on to satisfy some need?”
Hey LinuxUser2006, take a breather bro OR sis.
This is just a minor disturbance in the vast expanse that is “Reality.”
I personally just thought Kevins “microsoft statement” was pretty poor at best, thats why I responded.
All in all, I don’t really care much, freespires image doesnt really matter to me that much, but they do seem to be getting pounded on quite a bit. And I can’t say that all of it is unwarranted.
Edited because (bro/sis) is a me implying dual gender, that was not my intent. Bad, jdodson, bad
Ahh the joys of way too fast typing.
Edited 2006-09-04 22:42
“kernelpanicked, are you really this much of an ass off the forums, or is a persona you put on to satisfy some need?”
Says said troll whose account goes all the way back to today and has a total of 3 posts, all on this thread.
“Microsoft loves this drama among Linux and open source”
The United States president says the same kind of thing when people get critical of the war in Iraq. Something about disagreement and discussion fueling terrorism, or some such. Some call people being critical of certain political stances un-patriotic.
Kevin, your statement was so poor, I literally shook my head in disbelief that you actually made it.
jdodson,your statement was so poor, I literally shook my head in disbelief that you actually made it.
“jdodson,your statement was so poor, I literally shook my head in disbelief that you actually made it.”
LOL.
Fair enough, its just how i saw it:)
All in a days work I guess.
I just meant that just because some might be a bit critical of Linspires recent activities does not mean they mean to fuel Microsofts position.
Not that Kevin was saying that perse, but I don’t think people should really be too afraid of having a disagreement because Microsoft would possibly stand to benefit. Which I am not sure they would in this case anyway, this is a Freespire bad PR story. I fail to see how that effects the entire free software community or movement.
EDITed, i just couldnt resist.
Edited 2006-09-04 22:29
Looks like the lesson has not been learned
http://forum.freespire.org/showthread.php?t=1678
So what excuse do you have for this Kevin?
EDIT: BTW you guys should check the end of that thread again. They basically came ot the conclusion that anyone who drifts from the Kevin Carmont curcle jerk should get out, and then locked the thread.
Edited 2006-09-05 00:51
“EDIT: BTW you guys should check the end of that thread again. They basically came ot the conclusion that anyone who drifts from the Kevin Carmont curcle jerk should get out, and then locked the thread. ”
As the one who locked said thread, I can say that your statement is the furthest thing from the truth. There was an issue brought up by a member of the forums, it was resolved in less than 24 hours (on a holiday weekend, no less) by the CEO of Linspire…. and that was that.
We are trying to build a friendly, helpful community at Freespire, and the thread was obviously degenerating to the point that the “dead horse” was beaten over and over again. There were NO more useful points or couterpoints given, since the “problem” was solved, so I locked the thread. If you don’t like that… that’s cool by me. I don’t really care one way or the other what you think of me, but don’t put words or actions about me from YOUR mouth, as you obviously don’t know.
And yes… I registered here to be able to post, and this is my first post… I freely admit. However, no animals were hurt during the composition of this post…
Harvey
“As the one who locked said thread, I can say that your statement is the furthest thing from the truth. There was an issue brought up by a member of the forums, it was resolved in less than 24 hours (on a holiday weekend, no less) by the CEO of Linspire…. and that was that. ”
You people keep saying the issue is a “dead horse”. How is that remotely true when this is less than 24 hours old and, there still has not been a satisfactory response from kevin. “Everyone else does it” just won’t cut it. I didn’t put words in anyone’s mouth. All one has to do to verify my previous comment is look at the thread themselves.
” How is that remotely true when this is less than 24 hours old and, there still has not been a satisfactory response from kevin.”
That is YOUR opinion. Kevin had ALL the links changed when he found out about it… done deal, story finished… dead horse.
As I said, if YOU don’t like it… that’s cool by me. I’ll loose a whole pico seconds worth of sleep over it tonight.
Harvey
I have never ever EVER posted a thread questioning the point of an article on OSN, realizing that in many cases it’s simply different strokes for different folks, but seriously, WTF?
The thread was locked on the linspire forums and so now it’s carrying over here?
This is such a non-issue. Even Moulineff’s GPL / traitor rants are somewhat more insightful.
Disappointed. Mod me down if you must, but seriously, WTF?
Just wanted to say thanks to all who have tried to keep my posts modded up but save your votes. Nothing can stop the mob
Let them do whatever they want and hopefully once I have been silenced they will leave us alone then I will never do anything to get the nest all sitrred up and attacking everything in site. 
ps-i ran out of mod points but tried to bump you guys back up that were being hit unfairly.
Edited 2006-09-05 03:45
same here
weren’t you supposed to be gone?
Come on man, stick with what you say instead of waffling back and forth.
I am probably stirring up the nest more but could I ask that the mod attacks be limited to my posts please since others do have a right to their opinion on this site and considering they did not voice it in your forums I would think they would be allowed here. Please.
Don’t sweat it. The fact that they chose to come over here and post continuous trolls, one after another, then mod blast everything in sight is much more telling of the character of the average Linspire/Freespire user/ceo than a mod rating ever will be.
Edited 2006-09-05 04:20
Yea but I blew twenty votes trying to mod UP when I should of just been firing away at them…
heheheha
I cannot believe I just got done defending them in this thread
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=15672
of course even in that thread Mr Carmony is just as rude and I even stated…
… your denial of problems and spiteful responses to anyone bringing up issues is one of the biggest things that makes me dislike linspire and now freespire.
Guess that should of been a warning to myself what happens if you get in the way.
http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/08/26/1258238&tid=1…
Could I be Peter Toth? Could it be me they shut down years ago? Could that be the grudge I hold? Nah….
EDIT – what, you thought shutting down sites was something recently they came up with -> squiggleos? Nah….
Edited 2006-09-05 06:29
notice down in the comments section, from a lindows employee at the time
“First of all, this article isn’t FUD, as a couple of our “hardcores” seem to be claiming. I apologize for that, but I love their spunk.”
Yes, those “hardcores” have been doing this same crapola for all these years. Screaming troll and FUD and other nonsense. They have one hell of a community in some respects….sort of mob like aspect.
The problem existed for only two days, it was on the freespire servers and it got fixed right after being reported. The time wasn’t enough to bring freespire up in the statistics, since the hit waw only once when the problematic page was opened.
As for those who think Linspire just wants to make money, let me remind them that just a few days ago they made CNR (the best software installation system I have seen) free of charge.
Also those who complain about CompareSoft, should have a look at the licensing, the price and the package. Sure you can install them for free (from CNR) but you don’t get the package and the support for free.
Please stop bitching everytime someone is trying to make a living from OSS… It is in the licesing…
I don’t think anyone has a problem with selling support licenses or making money from OSS. Rebadging it and pretending it’s your own creation is an entirely different matter.
“I don’t think anyone has a problem with selling support licenses or making money from OSS. Rebadging it and pretending it’s your own creation is an entirely different matter.”
You spread more FUD than Microsoft…
You should send your resume to Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer and include links to your posts. I am sure that they would make you a VP of the FUD machine, straight out.
It cracks me up when people such as yourself have NO CLUE, but spout off anyway. Oh well… it’s always good for a laugh.
Harvey
Yea, they really did create all those comparesoft products. (psst… look it is one of THEM, they are still among us, just agree with them and they will not harm us hopefully)
“Yea, they really did create all those comparesoft products.”
Show me a link where they made such a claim…
You may want to look here:
http://www.comparesoft.com/community.html
Harvey
Kernelpanicked said Rebadging it and pretending it’s your own creation is an entirely different matter.
You called it all FUD. I think it is obviously not FUD since they are obviously rebadging it and I do not see where it mentions any of the projects that they rebadged. Show me a link where they mention the original projects?
Oh and care to bet WHICH opensource projects that they donate a portion of the fund to? I bet the all start with L or now maybe even F!
By the way I think you guys should use the word LIE when that is what you mean since the term FUD is not the same thing.
Look guy, just like Kevin Carmony, you too can carry your troll ass back over to your own forums.
Keep it up and I’ll be the first one to take advantage of the fact that you run your Lincrap box as root. Yes, I am very aware of your posts over on those other forums. Freaking disgraceful.
“Keep it up and I’ll be the first one to take advantage of the fact that you run your Lincrap box as root.”
LOLROTF ! ! !
Bring it on chump, bring it on…
As as for being a TROLL… not hardly, just trying to clear up the FUD that you spread about.
This reminds me of an old proverb that you should live by…
It is far better for the world to think of you as a FOOL, than to open your mouth, and prove it
Uh-oh… too late for that one… oh well, perhaps you should pay heed anyway, not that I think for one minute that you would.
Harvey
I haven’t seen you clear it up though. Where is this clarity you offer. Please offer some sources to prove your point besides – ‘Carmony said so’
“Look guy, just like Kevin Carmony, you too can carry your troll ass back over to your own forums.
Keep it up and I’ll be the first one to take advantage of the fact that you run your Lincrap box as root. Yes, I am very aware of your posts over on those other forums. Freaking disgraceful.”
kernelpanicked,
Is there any reason why one should not view this as a threat to someones computer security. Is not such a threat a threat to take illegal action against someone and cause harm? Is this issue really worth harming another person?
If this issue is such a non-issue as you all claim it was why are you all here?
No… As I stated in the first page of that thread the link on the linspire website had been that way for a while IIRC.
And it wasn’t JUST the home page, it was deceiving buttons and links on the NVU site.
Look at just page one or two of that thread. How was I out of line? Okay, by page two I was probably losing it a bit.
I have seen them treat others that way and always thought it was a bit weird but maybe the person was asking for it. Now I am on the other side and I realize it was just a normal joe stating a issue and then it escalates from there.
Someone likes to keep saying “one day”! It was “one day” after it was POINTED out to them that they fixed it. AFAIK it had been occuring for a while. The reason it did not affect the rankings for that “one day” is because THAT was when Ladislav from distrowatch was made aware of what was occuring.
Edited 2006-09-05 08:08
NVU is a dead thing, all hail Kompozer.
Having fun now!!!! Wheeeee…..
Wait a minute…. did someone say Steve Irwin???
deanlinkous you’re way too bored, and for a self-proclaimed ethical person, you’re acting pretty trashy yourself. you don’t know for a fact that linspire did this on purpose, so you should give them the benefit of the doubt, and let it go already.
or, in other words, you’re an idiot.
you don’t know for a fact that linspire did this on purpose, so you should give them the benefit of the doubt, and let it go already
Don’t be dense. You honestly think this could somehow happen by accident?
QUOTE=KEVIN CARMONY I’m sure there was an intention by someone to promote Freespire… Ahhh that “someone” who shall remain nameless. The one armed man did it, really!
Let it go? I am not the one continuing the charade…
Yes, I realize continuing to debate this when it is so obvious is probably a little trashy of me. Now the issue itself – well that is a whole lot of trashy and NOT me.
fud, troll,
Could someone get them some fresh words to use, these are the same ones they have been using for years to hide the crapola they do.
Here is a article that is interesting
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid…
The attorney for linspire says
When you look at where SCO gets its funding, it is no surprise that the single largest licensee from SCO is Microsoft.
But he fails to mention who else has some “agreement” with SCO. Who might that be I wonder? Lets see…
http://www.linspire.com/lindows_news_pressreleases_archives.php?id=…
More fud right?
Now I thought they claimed that part of what they “won” reagrding the lawsuit settlement with microsoft was that they had a license to use microsoft format codecs?
Yet according to the agreement it says this…
b. Within ninety (90) days of the Effective Date of this
Settlement Agreement, Lindows shall offer to its Distributors a modified version
of its renamed Linspire operating system product that does not include the
Windows Media Files.
Care to explain anyone?
I wonder why they are no longer selling that “legal” dvd player that they created?
I mean MR stated when asked about the licensing surrounding dvd playback “You can CNR DVD Player. We have an MPEG licence, and we pay the MPEG guys $3.50 a copy or something like that. So maybe it is legal for normal dvd playback but he dosn’t mention you need a CSS license from these guys http://www.dvdcca.org/ Could not having that be part of pulling the dvd player? Nah…
Actually this is just conjecture. I am being trashy now. I figure if I am going to be called trashy from the very first page of the thread at the forums as well as here then I might as well act it. Please excuse me and realize this is not my normal behavior.
I love how they are soooo against DRM. Yet what would you call something that encrypts a .deb and calls home to verify you have the rights to install it? The .cnr package is of course a DIGITAL format.The encryption is a RESTRICTION(s) that prevents you from installing it on other systems or anything that does not have the ability to unencrypt it. And the MANAGEMENT of the software is accounted for also since you have to ‘call home’ to install it and only if you have the ‘rights’!
Hmmm…. You have to have the rights to install free software. Should you have to have the rights to do that? I thought the GPL license gave you the right to use the software any way you wanted for the most part?
I know…. mo fud
Where did everyone go???
Alright then I guess the show is over… Tell Mr Carmony what he has won. A marginalized distro complete with two forums and the same crowd at both of them. Thank you and good night.
Dude(deanlinkerous) seriously, I tracked with you on the Freespire forums for like a few of your posts(as in thought your point was well made), but I think you have really strayed away from making any kind of serious point beyond that it seems to me you “hate” Linspire and Freespire. If this is incorrect and you don’t hate them, set me straight here, its just a interpretation(that was a run on sentence from hell I know)
Wherein I don’t support Linspire of Freespire by using it, I totally think they add to the ecosystem of free software by giving back quite a bit to the community(nvu, gaim, just released click and run) and by providing a product that vendors want(I interpret people shipping computers with Linspire as the vendor saying they want it, simple enough idea). People also purchase the computers, they obviously want Linspire too(or at least from a sales standpoint, thats how I would interpret it).
I also respect their stance on making free software obtainable by “regular joes.” Nothing wrong with that at all.
I think I verge from them a bit in that they hook in propreitary software to achieve a goal(regular user use and ease of use), but most distros do that and I support them as well(Ubuntu being a prominent example of providing propretary hooks in the kernel and via apt-get).
Wherein, I believe they do a few things I don’t consider correct(use of propretary software, this latest “round of fun with distrowatch”) I don’t believe having “different visions” of a GNU/Linux distribution is bad, even if they verge some from my free-software values.
I wish Lin/Freespire well and hope they are successful, because if they were to go away I don’t consider that a gain for the free software community. They are allies in the struggle, and helpers in the cause, though some more zealous than I that I respect might disagree with me.
I doubt the target audience of Lin/Freespire knows about this or if they did would care. Because, it seems to me that most people in life don’t really know about distro watch. Or at least, a non-techy who buys a pre-bundled computer at Frys wouldn’t, or at least most would not.
Now I don’t mean to slight the free software community, we are all “regular people” too, but we don’t speak for everyone, nor does everyone get “riled up” about what we do(like software freedom). Then again, I am not a mouth peice for the free software community, I just interpret values as I see them.
I am sure I could be wrong about my interpretation, but its just how I see it.
Now some might not see it as I do, thats fine, I can handle that. But I do believe they(Lin/Freespire) do more good than ill, and all distros do some ill to the free software movement even the popular ones. But thats a different discussion that I don’t really care to get into.
And this post is entirely too long as is. But I have to add one more sentence because its somewhat ironic and I enjoy that kind of humor. One more for good measure.
Edited 2006-09-05 16:53
I have strayed. Just for shits and giggles…
As you stated, I started off civil and you see where that got me. All the stuff I dreg up now is stuff I put behind and totally wiped the slate clean for freespire – believe it or not. If they had kept their nose clean, if they had not done the exact same stuff that they did before following the ‘right’ path… I mean how many times does Courtney Love show up in court and convince everyone she is clean and nice, and how many times do we let her do it before we throw the book at her for making a ass out of all of us and pulling stunt after stunt until there is no option left but for us to truly give up and say – it is obvious. (okay maybe not the best example but I am running on little sleep so cut me a break please)
How about this, fool me once shame on you…
I am not big on commercial distros, not against but certainly not for by any means. Neutral at best with a occasional rant that the only acceptable commercial distro is one with that also has a community project hanging out beside them. It seems the perfect balance to me. So I was very happy when freespire came about and one of my biggest criticisms of linspire was resolved with free cnr or even apt/synaptic access would of been acceptable. Any supported way to install software in other words. Now I am upset that I as well as others were dumb enough to give them yet another chance. So I guess I am hurt by the actions.
Even worse, I am hurt by the response because I have seen this same thing occur to others. I have watched it thinking it was bad form on both sides of the argument. But now I am the guy it is happening to. I brought up a point. I was a little joking, a little critical, and when the issue was fully realized I was upset but still conducted myself the best I could while trying to fend off punches from numerous forum posters. The more I tried the worse they acted until I honestly was shaking and upset. Upset for me as well as those others I have seen get the flaming rod treatment. It finally hits me they they acted the same then in those cases as they are now, which I know they are guilty now so what should I think about the other issues?
So now I am just mad! Now am I acting hateful. Sure am, because the issue is a clear indicator of business as usual and the response I received proved it beyond a doubt. If KC had stepped up, admitted guilt, apologized, asked Ladislav to correct whatever he felt was fair then apologized to the community for such a silly stunt. I would of been done with them but I at least would of walked away quietly.
Now I am trying to remember everything I can that seemed negative toward them because NOW I believe every word.
As you can see I am not posting lies, not twisting the truth, not putting a spin on everything, simply showing you the history of this company and hoping you realize that frespire is just one more step of the whole path.
Careful bro. You’ll just invite KC and the ModTroll Band back over here.
kidding, they deserve everything they get.
A lot of discussion has occurred on this matter here, at the Freespire forums, and other places.
For some, it was no big deal, for others it was.
Some of those people who felt it was a big deal expressed themselves very well on the issue at hand and others on both sides of the issue responded with personal attacks,venom, and flames that will go down in history as really quite nasty and lacking maturity.
At the end of the day, this was discovered, addressed, and reported. Now you have choices to make. If this is something you perceive as no big deal, then you may continue using and supporting Freespire in peace-unless you are not a Freespire user, then you just continue on with your life.
If this is a big deal to you and a severe ethical breach, then you have some choices. If you felt the correction and response was satisfactory, then you move on in much the same fashion as those who saw it as no big deal and forgive. If the response and correction was not satisfactory, that is fine. Do not use or support the distro.
Within these reasonable options, I find little room or logic to continue with assaults on a personal level and to paint an entire community or staff with such a broad brush and delve into conjecture and conspiracy. All that does is divide.
Cheers
I cannot speak for anyone else. This is OS news and I have an account that allows me to post my thoughts and my feelings on this or any other matter. As one who is part of the Freespire and Linspire community, this story is of interest to me and I’ve just as much a right to comment on the story or the comments made in regard to the story if I wish.
Yes, and looking back on your comments shows me EXACTLY what matter you feel like commenting on. Now what happens to anyone who posts at the *spire forums just about one issue…what is the label you’ll use? How do you’ll treat someone that just runs in to defend someone or as you’ll put it to assist in attacking *spire?
If you feel that my presence is unwarranted and I am trolling or flaming, feel free to contact an OS News administrator and have my account removed for breaching their terms of service. I’ve just read them and I am not aware of any breaches of conduct on my part.
I’ve not attacked anyone, insulted anyone, or issued personal attacks. I did give an opinion, asked people to tone down the personal attacks and did directly challenge a threat made by one OSAlert poster o another OSAlert poster.
That is true. I give you that. But here you are simply a user, not the leadership tingy mabob so askign for a thread to be closed here probably will not work. Just so you know. I am also not sure that asking someon to tone down the personal attacks isn’t just asking for more of the same.
I have no authority over anyone else at the Freespire forums. If I was a mod, I would have locked it, but I am not, so I made a plea to have it locked, it had run it’s course and had degenerated. I am a mod at other forums, but in most, I am a mere mortal who adheres to the rules of any given community.
If you feel that I have personally wronged you, you are free to contact me through PM or even here and I will answer to my crimes and apologize for them as publicly or as privately as you desire, Dean.
You tell me how I wronged you or abused or otherwise intimidated you and I will be a man and own up to it. If, however, I do not think I was in the wrong, I will make my case.
If you just want to question my right to post as I please, I’ll not respond to you.
I didn’t question it any further. I said that it was true and I give you that. I just wanted to warn you that telling someone over here to tone it down is not the same as saying it over there.
That being said, reread your posts in that thread. You and Kevin Carmony sure kept the heat on me huh? And did you investigate the situation, did you keep a open mind and examine what I was saying? Did you even give me half a fair chance or did you redicule me with that “grassy knoll” crap and sidestep with talk of the amish? Did you partially quote Ladislav, pointing out the parts that made it look alright while brushing aside the fact that he said it was obviously intentional. I like how YOU decide there is no more to discuss.
Anytime you’ll want to let this die I will too…
Waiting….
I am not in a position with Linspire or Freespire to investigate anything, nor did I feel it was needed. I,frankly, did not see it as as big a deal as you did. Someone put the redirects in there and they have been removed. For me, that is good enough, for you, it is not. Anything else or are we through?
A little warm warning for everyone here: be nice, or I will hand out some bans around here. If people suspect others from having mulitple accounts, feel free to email the crew and we’ll investigate the matter. Don’t go throwing out accusations around here, ok?
So, boys and girls, be nice, or face the consequences.
Please THOM do that. I suspect myself. Investigate me fully. To any degree needed to prove I am more than just me. Please. I am truly asking. Please investigate this matter. Thank you!
Whether the original linking was intential or not, it really does not matter. Almost all other distros have done that. Some have even had users at their respective forums spam distrowatch to up their rankings (I know I’ve seen posts on the Ubuntu forums encouraging people to do this – to “support our distro”).
Then, of course, once the Freespire’s action/mistake/oversight was outed, they corrected it immediately and apologized. Plus, it did not affect their distrowatch page hit rankings at all.
To add to this, Ladislav at distrowatch says this thing happens frequently. Again, not a big deal.
Then, people have to make a huge deal about it, lecturing about ethics, Linspire being evil, etc etc. But of course, they single out Linspire, and ignore all other distros.
It’s all just very very silly.
Ironically, I’ve been using Freespire of late, and I’m finding it very much to my liking. I’ve been looking for just the right desktop Linux distro for quite a while now, constantly switching from one to the other. But alas none really had that extra bit of polish and attention to detail, and making everything “just work”. I want this, not due to unwillingness or lack of knowledge to tweak a Linux install – I can and have installed both Slackware and FreeBSD comfortably. I just like a desktop distro to save me some time, and hav that extra polish that gives me the wow factor, and makes my computing life easier.
Freespire is so far looking like it fits the bill.
Ubuntu didn’t – hardware detection substandard compared to many, many other distros – and clunky in Live mode. Otherwise great looking, and freezes Debian Sid repos, which brings stability when doing updates and installing new software.
Mepis didn’t – great hd detection and polish, but was a bit bloated, and became somewhat unstable over time and apt-getting stuff.
PCLinuxOS – very very close, but no cigar. The repos are not as extensive as I’d like, and the latest .93a had too many app crashes and KDE crashes.
Fedora – great hd detection and installer, full featured and powerful, but too bloated and buggy for my tastes.
Kanotix – best hd detection I’ve ever experieinced. Has literally worked great on every piece of hd I’ve thrown at it. But it’s based on Debian Sid, which means that over time my system would become borked with dist-upgrades and/or installing new stuff with apt.
Slackware – very stable and fast. But too much damn work to get everything working correctly. I don’t mind the command line or editing config files, or Googling for answers and reading the f&*%$#@ manual. But I don’t like having to use up too much of my time with that stuff. I’m technically oriented (I’m a programmer by trade), and I’m fully capable and willing to do that stuff. I just greatly prefer convenience.
So, at the moment, it’s Freespire. It’s polished, beautiful, fast, stable (so far), super easy, great installer, and CNR is simply the best package tool I’ve ever seen. It realy does make apt much easier and more enjoyable.
And the fact that Freespire is seeminly hated by the elitist, uber geek, uber zealot, Linux fan-boy trolling crowd (a minority in the Linux community, actually), makes Freespire all the more appealing to me.
If this was a one day oops then how did 1500plus hits happen? This was not for one day. The time took to CORRECT it was one day.
Where did you see a apology or even a admission of anything until after it was shown what Kevin Carmony was saying was obviously incorrect and then it was a sidestep hald admission of some one armed man that did this evil deed behind their back?
Ladislav said a LOT more than that. You’ll keep leaving out the parts that don’t make you look good. You keep spinning it and twisting it to put yourself in a good light instead of just telling it like it is.
Ladislav said…
The current Freespire issue looks to me as an obvious attempt to manipulate the DistroWatch page hit ranking.
The front page of Linspire.com links to the same page with a “Get Freespire Now” graphic (even as I write this, despite Kevin’s assurances above that this has been rectified) – a rather deceiving redirection.
There is a similarly deceiving graphic on nvu.com. I might be wrong, but the above suggests that this is hardly a mistake, but rather a concerted effort to increase the Freespire page hit ranking on DistroWatch.
Kevin is also wrong in assuming that these are all innocent re-directions that have nothing to do with the page hit statistics on DistroWatch.
Together they have added a no inconsiderable number of visits to DistroWatch – all to the Freespire page.
Yes I am just quoting my favorite parts…playing by their rules now even though I am not as good as you’ll at spin and smoke and mirrors and twisting stuff.
And the fact that Freespire is seeminly hated by the elitist, uber geek, uber zealot, Linux fan-boy trolling crowd (a minority in the Linux community, actually), makes Freespire all the more appealing to me.
I new this sentiment would come out again. Now make it the plot to keep the elitist linux gurus toy to themselves and not let anyone in to ruin their OS. Come on, you know you want to. Should I post the thread to the forums where this exact sentiment is stated?
Edited 2006-09-05 18:18
Flame, troll, accuse, demonize all you want. Hate Linspire all you want.
But at the moment, I’m really liking Freespire, and I’m going to continue to use it, and I’m going to recommend it to a lot of people.
I’m also liking Linspire as a company. They are simply trying to run a business based on desktop Linux, and they are really helping the cause of spreading Linux to newbies. Linspire is also acting like a good OSS citizen. They’ve contributed back to FOSS with Lsongs, Lphoto, Nvu, and now CNR. They’ve hosted, at their expense, desktop Linux summits, and invited all interested parties. They’ve brought in OSS luminaries like Ian Murdock (ya know the guy that started that little old project called Debian) in to their Freespire board. They’re now giving their distro away, including their crown jewel, CNR, as a more cutting edge, non supported release. They even offer it in a pure OSS version (no proprietary codecs/drivers), for the OSS purists.
I also think that Kevin Carmony seems like a straight up guy – afterall, how many CEOs have the kahunas to post on forums that have a lot hostile (to their cause) users, and still remain calm and professional? I also think that Kevin Carmony truly understands the non-techie – something that many in the Linux community quite frankly fails to do, in spite of the fact that they claim to do so.
Yup, I’m going to keep using Freespire because I like it.
If you don’t like it, that’s entirely your problem.
I’m for freedom of choice. Are you?
I’m for freedom of choice. Are you?
I was going to refrain from posting anything further in this inane thread, but I’m modding you up for that line alone because I think it’s a message that’s lost on too many people. It’s just sad.
As H.G. Wells said: “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
pardon my ignorance, but what does modding you up mean?
pardon my ignorance, but what does modding you up mean?
+1 on the comment score.
And I’m taking one away. There’s quite enough pointless Kevin Carmony fellatio going on here without your inane crap.
Yawn, are you done yet? Get over yourself or multiple selfs and take your meds dude!
Your responses are some of the best. I work for MS, I am multiple people, I am this, i am that…
If you could be half as critical of the company in question as you are of me then it may be a shocker.
Nice site:
http://cookie.allrecipes.com/
Since the Distrowatch guy seems to not be bothered and the ranking hasn’t changed much if at all.
The grassy knoll was sarcasm directed at what I felt were conspiracy theories. Perhaps sarcasm is not the most civil thing and for that, I apologize. As far as the amish crack, that was not misdirection, that was further sarcasm of which there was plenty in abundance from many people, that said, if it offended you, I am sorry, but it was not a side step.
A lot of people, including you have quoted that post without putting it in its entirety. I see no harm or misdirection in that as the entire thread is there for all to read…so, I feel I’ve nothing to apologize on that score.
if distrowatch is pointless then why try to rig it?
I get called a troll over there because I am too honest and somehow not “sincere” enough and because they think I truly do not care about freespire.
Yet here…
http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=26089
I get called a troll because I am too honest, overly sincere and show that I do care about freespire which means I am somehow taking a swipe at xandros.
How can I win???
EDIT – I hope the thread at the xandros forum shows I was truly behind the freespire project, truly thought good things about it no matter how critical I was and proves that my intentions were just as I stated.
Edited 2006-09-06 02:11
Hey look, yet another thread where I was praising freespire and CNR being free…
http://www.mepislovers.com/forums/index.php?topic=1589.0
and another
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/coffee-lounge/69601-wow-click-n-ru…
and another
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=8509
and another really good one
http://www.linuxagora.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=343
and I think there was a couple more places also.
How many of you’ll would go to the trouble of doing the same for *spire especially on some of the more hardcore forums. Now on those I DID make a ass out of myself by believing in *spire!
Still doubting my TRUE intentions?
I will admit by the end of some of those I was upset and also telling the bad the same way I started off telling the good, straight to the point.
How did I forget my ubuntu post
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=246963
nobody here?
Edited 2006-09-06 03:38
I know this is silly to keep trying but anyway… I wanted to condense my previous posts. So here it is.
Hey look, a thread where I was praising freespire and CNR being free…
http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=26089
and another
http://www.mepislovers.com/forums/index.php?topic=1589.0
and another
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/coffee-lounge/69601-wow-click-n-ru…..
and another
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=8509
and another really good one
http://www.linuxagora.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=343
and another
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=246963
Notice at the xandros forums (first link) I had to tolerate being called a troll for posting about CNR and that I thought it was good. I can’t seem to win at all.
I hope these threads shows I was truly behind the freespire project, truly thought good things about it no matter how critical I was and proves that my intentions were just as I stated.
How many of you’ll would go to the trouble of doing the same for *spire especially on some of the more hardcore forums. Now on those I DID make a ass out of myself by believing in *spire!
Still doubting my TRUE intentions?
I will admit by the end of some of those I was upset and also telling the bad the same way I started off telling the good, straight to the point.
Edited 2006-09-06 03:39
Let’s everybody set their homepage to the distrowatch page of their choice and may the best distro win!!!
THAT is actually a idea. How about a special rank chart for this event and on one certain day everyone does exactly that. Excellent idea.
Oh and dude I just wanted to show MY intentions were true in reagrds to freespire since it was stated over and over that I was just being dishonest about truly wanting freespire to suceed and waiting for a opportuniy to make them look bad.
Yes, I was actually contacted by Elton and he mumbled something about the bitch was back and hung up the phone singing c’mon baby run linspire or something…
Edited 2006-09-06 16:59
…at us. The more we bicker the weaker Linux and open source gets.
Yes, they all set around corporate HQ and read osnews and watch linux getting weak…
I know because as previously stated I am not just a troll but a shill also..