日前，開源業界有名的兩家軟件企業Linspire和Canonical公司共同簽署了一份合作計劃，該計劃內容包括，在以後的發行版中， Linspire公司的Linspire/Freespire產品將基於Canonical公司的Ubuntu Linux發行版；而Canonical公司的Ubuntu Linux也將使用Linspire公司提供的CNR升級系統。兩家公司都相信，通過這樣的合作兩者都將受益，在微軟獨占的桌面操作系統市場將為Linux掙得一份市場份額。
Linspire公司的CEO Kevin Carmony認為，通過這次技術合作，Linux桌面將得到有效的推廣和統一。他還認為，目前的Linux依然面臨著不少的問題和挑戰，特別是目前Windows獨霸桌面操作系統市場令他擔憂，但是，Linspire公司有信心在為用戶提供差異化選擇的同時，盡量使得用戶感覺不到其中的差異。
Linspire公司的產品基礎將從Debian變更為Ubuntu，而且最新的基於Ubuntu的Freespire 2.0 rc版本即將發布，最終Freespire 2.0也將隨著Ubuntu 7.04正式版的發布而發布，預定日期是在4月中旬。
在談到合作伙伴Cononical的時候，Carmony大家贊賞，他認為，Ubuntu的母公司Cononical是一家非常成功的開源軟件公司，他們為開源軟件業界和社區做了大量的貢獻，和Cononical公司合作，會使得Linspire的產品更上一個台階。
在簽署協議的同時，Ubuntu的創始人Shuttleworth也對合作發布了看法，他認為，兩家開源軟件公司聯手，就是為了合作共贏，自由軟件發展的基礎就是共享和合作，現在兩家公司就是這麼做的，這樣做可以更有效的利用現有的兩家公司的資源來為開源軟件的發展和創新做貢獻。
通過和Linspire CNR服務的整合，Ubuntu用戶將可以享受簡單的一路next式的軟件安裝和升級服務，而以前的Ubuntu自有的升級服務方式同樣保留，目前通過CNR提供的升級服務的軟件產品大概有超過20000個。Linspire公司的CNR軟件升級服務目前剛剛向其他Linux開放，Ubuntu是第一個受到支持Linux 發行版。
Ubuntu創始人在談到的CNR服務的時候說，他一直以來在為Ubuntu的商業化軟件升級服務感到不滿意，現在和Linspire公司合作，利用他們的CNR服務，非常適合目前Ubuntu的發展需要，大大節省了我們的工作量。
到四月份的時候，Ubuntu的用戶就可以通過訪問www.cnr.com來搜索他們要升級的軟件產品了，可以通過產品名字關鍵字或者功能關鍵字。
This partnership will see Linspire base Linspire/Freespire on Ubuntu, while Canonical will in turn use Linspire's CNR commercial software e-commerce technology. Both companies believe that they will benefit in this partnership by promoting the adoption of Linux in the Microsoft dominated desktop market.
"This technology partnership goes a long way in advancing and unifying the Linux desktop," said Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire. "Linux faces many challenges as it competes in a world historically dominated by Microsoft Windows, so there is plenty of work to go around and we're pleased to be able to offer differentiation and choice, while redUCing fragmentation."
Linspire will move from Debian to Ubuntu as the base for its desktop operating system. Early releases of Freespire 2.0 based on Ubuntu are eXPected soon, with the final release expected to follow the official release of Ubuntu 7.04 in April.
"Ubuntu is the most successful community-based Linux project to date," said Carmony. "They have done a fantastic job with the development community and creating tools for utilising their technology. It made a tremendous amount of sense to partner with Canonical and begin basing our desktop Linux offerings on Ubuntu."
"The very nature of Free Software development is based on sharing and collaboration," commented Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. "The less time, energy and resources Canonical and Linspire spend duplicating efforts, the more time we'll all have for unique improvements and innovation."
Through the incorporation of Linspire's CNR service, Ubuntu users will continue to have the same repository and installation options as before, but will have Access over 20 000 desktop Linux products, packages and libraries, all with a single mouse click. Linspire recently announced plans to make their CNR technology available for other Linux distributions. Ubuntu will be the first distro to be supported.
"For some time, we've been planning enhancements to Ubuntu's commercial software management, and it was only natural to take advantage of Linspire's new, open CNR technology rather than duplicating that work," continued Shuttleworth.
In April Ubuntu users will be able to use www.cnr.com, to search for applications under a variety of tags such as title and function. An open-sourced plugin for each supported distribution is then used to add the one-click installation functionality. In the future, Canonical plans to integrate ASPects of the CNR technology so the purchase of commercial software is straightforward for desktop users.
Linspire and Ubuntu first started casual discussions about ways to work together a few years back, but started more formal discussions on ways to work together over the past year.
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