The first 1.0 release of Freespire came just a few days ago. For those who are timid about moving into Linux or trying open source, but want to take a peek, there's a very excellent review of the desktop-oriented release. A spin of Linspire, Freespire removes the portions of Linspire that require it to be licensed and make it available for free. The project, like Linspire, is designed to make Linux as easy to use as possible for targeting users of the "plug and play" sector that typically use whatever their PC has by default.
The review was very fair, taking place on a generic OEM Dell machine. It goes over the ease of install, the aesthetics of the default environment, stock media functionality, installed software and more. It's very brief, but worth a look.