A report surfaced yesterday from a minority shareholder and former Linspire exec that the company has secretly sold itself to Xandros.

According to former CEO Kevin Carmony, now a notable public critic of Linspire and its Chairman Michael Robertson, a memo was circulated to Linspire shareholders on Monday informing them of a "corporate action taken without a meeting, by less than unanimous written consent of the Company's stockholders" — corporatespeak for "we did something without telling you first." According to the memo posted by Carmony, the "stockholders" voted to sell Linspire to Xandros, the company behind a competing Linux distribution for the "average" or "mainstream" user. Both companies have been targets of heavy criticism from the Open Source community for inclusion of proprietary software in their distributions as well as patent deals with Microsoft.

As of this writing, neither company appears to have confirmed Carmony's allegations, and major press outlets have yet to report on the matter. Attempts to reach both companies for comment were unsuccessful. Breaking News will continue to provide updates and clarifications as they become available.

Update: Breaking News has now received confirmation from Xandros that Linspire has indeed been acquired and will be operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary. We will continue to provide details as they become available.
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Justin Ryan is News Editor for LinuxJournal.com.
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