Freespire was started by Linspire, which serves as the project maintainer and lead sponsor, with the main objective for Freespire being to serve as a baseline for the Linspire operating system. Freespire will not fall far from the Linspire tree, and visa versa. Freespire is the free edition of the Linspire operating system.

Freespire believes that each individual should be free to choose what software is installed on their computer. Freespire will provide a "free marketplace" for any and all Linux software, including proprietary, open source, free, and commercial products. As with any free market, all vendors are "free" to participate and offer their wares, and the buyer is "free" to choose from the different wares without limitations or restrictions on their choice. Freespire uses the CNR Warehouse as this marketplace (accessible through either the CNR client or apt-get), where users will find both free open source applications, as well as commercial proprietary offerings. Freespire's mission is to simply provide this marketplace, and let both independent and commercial vendors place their software products in the CNR Warehouse, and then let each individual user choose what software to install on their system, either using CNR or apt-get.