Kevin Carmony is the president and CEO of Linspire. Kevin kindly agreed to answer a few questions, and talk about his new project: Freespire.

In Free Software Magazine, we choose to use the terms “free software” (rather than Open Source) and “GNU/Linux” (rather than Linux). However, this is an interview and answers will be left unedited.

TM: Thanks for the interview Kevin! Well, first of all tell us something about you and Linspire…

KC: Linspire was founded five years ago, and I have been here from the very beginning. Linspire was started in an effort to expose GNU/Linux to the mainstream market by making it polished and easier to use, include support, and then to get it pre-installed on computers at the OEM level.

Figure 1: Kevin Carmony

TM: What does Linspire offer?

KC: Linspire is designed exclusively for use on desktop and laptop computers, particularly for consumers. We don’t offer server or enterprise products, as there are already plenty of great Linux products out there for these areas. Because we focus on the consumer desktop, Linspire is ideally suited for the non-technical computer user who would like to use Linux on their desktop or laptop, and have everything just work from the moment they turn on their computer. For example, Linspire supports MP3, DVD, Windows Media, QuickTime, Flash, Java, and so on, right out of the box.

TM: One of the big features of Linspire is the CNR Service (Click and Run). This client was originally based on APT (Debian’s package manager). CNR has now evolved. Is it still based on APT? Can a “hybrid system” function properly without going through the dependency hell?

KC: Correct. CNR has always been, and still is, based around Debian packaging, including APT. You have always been able to use APT with Linspire. However, you might (as is the case with any Debian-based distro) run into problems if you APT from different pools which are not compatible; this is also true for Debian, Ubuntu, etc. So, in other words, if you CNR from the Linspire CNR Warehouse repository, and then you apt-get from Debian or Ubuntu repositories, you may or may not create dependency problems. Linspire stays pretty close to Debian Sid, but there are so many .deb repositories, you just need to be careful. Our goal is to make sure the CNR Warehouse remains the most inclusive, stable and current repository so there isn’t any need to APT outside of the CNR repository, but there is nothing preventing anyone from doing that.

TM: Is it actually possible for Ubuntu and Debian users to use Linspire’s repository?

KC: Because Linspire was designed for consumers, there wasn’t really any need to offer that. However, with Freespire being used by more traditional Linux users, Freespire certainly needs that level of flexibility. So, starting with the Freespire release, yes, anyone can use APT to pull from all our repositories. However, Ubuntu and Debian users would also need to be careful doing that, just like Linspire users need to use caution when pulling from non-Linspire repositories, as I mentioned earlier.

TM: So, what are the advantages of CNR exactly? And are those advantages only available if the CNR client talks to the CNR server?

KC: A lot of people who aren’t familiar with CNR assume it’s simply a graphical front end for APT, but that’s not at all the case. We’ve spent five years perfecting the CNR system, and it has a couple of dozen big differences from APT. Rather than go into all those differences here, I’d suggest your readers visit this link, where we have an entire page of information on the differences between APT and CNR.

TM: I looked at the charts. You offer, for example, the ability to buy programs, see “charts”, see reviews/screenshots, etc. These are the features that depend on the CNR server, right?

KC: Anyone, even Windows or Mac users, can see the charts and reviews from the website. But yes, buying the commercial software, creating Aisles, our ecommerce system, and so on use the CNR servers.

Figure 2: Launch menu

TM: Could I decide to run a CNR server myself, if I wanted to?

KC: We have no plans on open sourcing the server piece (since this is where the e-commerce lives for the commercial software, etc.), but because CNR uses APT, anyone can easily set up a Debian repository server and use the CNR client if they wished to talk to that server using CNR. Our website and servers are an important part of our business, just like I’m sure Amazon’s, Google’s, eBay, and Yahoo’s are for theirs.

TM: I am sure your company will prosper for many years. However, this does mean that if anything goes wrong, your users won’t be able to access the repositories anymore. How do you address this problem?

KC: We are no different than if “something went wrong” and the Debian repository servers went down. The repositories themselves, for the open source software, can easily be mirrored by anyone. In fact, CNR has a tool built in (called CNR Express) to do just that. We have many Linspire users who keep most of the software they ever use from our Warehouse on their local network drive, this way when they use CNR it rarely even hits our servers but pulls everything from a local drive or network.

TM: Point taken! However, since the server is not free, all that would be lost is the extra information (voting, screenshots, etc.). Is that correct?

KC: That would be like saying if eBay’s servers went down, all that would be lost are the photos of items that were for sale. I think we can agree there is a lot more to the eBay, Google or Yahoo servers than housing content or files. As I said, there are a lot of features to the CNR service Linspire provides. Providing that service is how we stay in business, just like cooking hamburgers is how McDonald’s stays in business. Certainly some parts of the CNR Service can be replaced with apt-get or manual means, but that would take effort on someone’s part to go to that bother. We make money from the CNR service, it’s how we pay our full-time employees. If someone is worried about Linspire not being around, they shouldn’t use the CNR service, just like they shouldn’t use the service of a web provider, email provider, photo hosting, wiki hosting, and so on, if they don’t have confidence that provider will be around or they’re not willing to take the risk of them going away. When I pay someone to watch my dog if I leave town, I have to trust that they’re going to be there with my dog, when I get back in town. If I don’t have that level of trust, I shouldn’t trust them with my dog, and either find someone else, or stay home and watch the dog myself.

TM: I understand that CNR client is one of the main players here. You said that you would release it under a free license. Will that be an OSI approved license?

KC: Most likely. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be. The final decision of exactly which license we’ll be using hasn’t been made yet, largely just because we’ve been busy with other matters, and we don’t need to have this until the Freespire software is released in August.