based in san diego, california, lindows, inc. was founded in august 2001 by michael robertson with the goal of developing a linux-based operating system capable of running major microsoft windows applications. it based its windows compatibility on the wine api emulation layer. the company later abandoned this approach in favor of attempting to make linux applications easy to download, install and use. to this end a program named "cnr" was developed: based on debian's advanced packaging tool, it provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface and a slightly modified package system for an annual fee. the first public release of linspire was version 1.0, released in late 2001.