Canonical and Linspire team up

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, announced today a new partnership with commercial Linux distributor Linspire. The partnership will primarily entail technical collaboration. Linspire's commercial distribution—which is currently based on Debian—will become an Ubuntu derivative, and Canonical will integrate Linspire's Click-n-Run (CNR) software distribution system into Ubuntu.

Freespire 2.0, the next major version of Linspire's community-driven distribution, will be Linspire's first release to be based on Ubuntu. Early Freespire 2.0 releases will be available in the first quarter of 2007, and the final release will occur after the release of Ubuntu Feisty in April. Linspire will continue to incorporate its own proprietary components, but at this time it is still unclear whether Linspire will switch to GNOME or use Kubuntu packages to provide KDE.

As part of the deal, Canonical plans to adopt Linspire's CNR system for commercial software distribution. CNR enables users to purchase, install, update, and manage proprietary codecs and commercial Linux applications through a single cohesive interface. The system, which supports approximately 20,000 applications, includes free proprietary applications like Google Earth and RealPlayer 10 as well as commercial applications like LinuxCAD.