This too is Linux

Linspire chief executive Michael Roberst has a thing for drama. In an interview with vnunet.com last year, he had little trouble comparing his company Linspire with the Chinese student who stopped a column of tanks during the 1989 student uprising.

He didn't even hisitate when he answered: "There is some analogy," about the comparison. But he recovered quickly during the interview: "It is overstated a little bit." But just a little bit.

Linspire sells Linux for the desktop, targeting the product at the lower end of the market and everyday users.

Back at the time of the vnunet.com interview, Linspire had just reached a settlement with Microsoft over the name of his company: the Redmond company payed him $20m to change it from Lindows to Linspire, ending some long court proceedings in Europe and the US.

Soon after reaching the settlement Linspire cancelled its IPO. The market wasn't yet ready to fund a loss making high tech company.

The Linspire prospectus contained a paragraph that said that Robertson had borrowed his company roughly $10m. And part of the IPO proceedings would be used to pay Roberts back. But when Microsoft opened its wallet, Robertson was first in line to claim back his $10m. The prospectus had to be amended.

Was Robertsen entitled to get his money back? Surely he was. But should we feel sorry for him, facing the risk of loosing his hard earned greenbacks? Not at all. Back in 2001 Roberston made a tidy profit when he sold his company mp3.com to Universal for $350m.

Robertson is currently touring Europe to promote the latest version of his software, Robertson spoke with vnunet.com once again.

There he complained about how Microsoft had him kicked out of a hotel once in Japan. But his revenge was sweet: "It's a sweet irony that the $20 million we got from them has funded this release."

That is, of course, after we take out the ten million that Robertson needed for himself. But that doesn't fit well in the story of the little student blocking the seemingly invincible tank.