Linspire giving away licensed digital copies

[brakthepoet]

After some confusion from users over a project appearing on Distrowatch, Linspire decided to give away copies of their Linux-based OS.

We thought it would be fun, for all of those who were looking at this project to experience a true "Freespire", to give away a free digital copy of Linspire for a few days! We thought this would actually be a great way to highlight what it is that makes Linspire special and unique, and different from other Linux distributions.

It's available for download here:
http://info.linspire.com/freespire/ [info.linspire.com]
Hardware compatibility check here:
http://www.linspire.com/products_linspire_whatis.php?tab=systemreq [linspire.com]

First Opera [webmasterworld.com], now Linspire. Will anyone else jump on this giveaway bandwagon?

[bcolflesh]

Thanks for this - always curious about Linspire - nice to have all the non-GPL stuff on the install disc - note, it works as a live disc as well, ala Knoppix.

[encyclo]

Hmm... put in the order, got a receipt, followed the instructions to the letter to get the ISO and the only products listed for download are Firefox for Windows and the Firefox source code tarball! Tried the "support" section, but the search function does nothing but spray Javascript and server-side errors across the screen.

Either they are overloaded by the demand, or their site is pretty broken. Not very impressive, and I haven't even tried their product yet...

[brakthepoet]

Did you see the note at the bottom of the offer page?

Due to the popularity of this offer, our servers are being slammed! Please be patient with our servers, as they are running their little hearts out right now. =) The good news is ... if you go ahead and redeem your free coupon by following the instructions below, it creates your account and adds your free copy of Linspire into your locker, which you can download at anytime in the future. So, go ahead and cash in on the coupon for your free copy today, before it expires, but you may want to wait a few days until things slow down to actually download the operating system file.

To be fair to Linspire, the servers are pretty loaded anytime Fedora releases a new version, and I don't know if Linspire has the numerous mirrors that Fedora has.

I did note that the giveaway version does not include Click N Run, which is one of the more attractive aspects of Linspire. Regardless, it'll be nice to test to see if it can be a low cost option for those looking for a non-Windows OS. I usually recommend a Mac, but a lot of folks balk at the price tag. (Actually, these days I recommend a Mac even if they aren't looking for a Microsoft replacement.) A $60 OS, plus maybe recycling their old hardware, would be much more attractive to a lot of users.

[Namaste]

great marketing tactic.
Lets try tomo