How is Freespire... free?

[kripkenstein]

A new version of Freespire came out recently. So, how does this work... anyone can download Freespire, at no cost, and it includes MP3 and WMA codecs, DVD playback, etc., right? But doesn't the Linspire corporation need to pay a per-seat license fee for those?

If so, who pays the license fee? If not, how did they get that sort of arrangement? None of this makes sense to me.

[DreamcastJack]

Linspire also has a pay Linux OS as well, I guess they pay with it. Freespire isnt to bad, not great. but not bad, I would use it if I wasnt using PCLOS or Ubuntu. it reconized my wireless card in my laptop with no problems.

[tgalati4]

Freespire 1.0.13 is a decent distribution if you want a base Debian system with a recent KDE loaded on top, and just about any codec already loaded. It works well and sudo apt-get install anythingyoucanthinkof also works.

Freespire 2.0 is based on Feisty with codecs and KDE added. So if you have older hardware and you had trouble loading Feisty or freezes or other weirdness, I would expect the same under Freespire 2.0. It is less stable at this point but time will tell how well received it is.

I'm not sure how the codecs are paid for. Perhaps it is a marketing expense against Linspire sales.

[jrusso2]

Freespire does not include playback of encrypted DVD's. My understanding is they pay for a license for those codecs, so its not on a per installation basis.

The new agreement for the Microsoft WMP 10 codec is on a per install basis so thats why its not incuded in Freespire