On 2/20/2010 9:46 AM, Martin Schlander wrote:
I don't think you mentioned if Amarok have a policy for such a thing - would you guys ever integrate it into "mainline" Amarok? .. of course an opt-in 3rd party script is a different matter.
It could be, if the API is open, which I would imagine it is (somewhat) as the source code is open. But there's no reason for us to do it if all that happens is it makes Canonical money, and that Amarok gets no benefit from it. Canonical could pay someone to do some bespoke development to get it in Amarok (they won't), at which point we may or may not accept it upstream. So far our policy for music stores has been pretty strict: they must allow full-length previews, they must allow tracks that have been purchased to be redownloaded at any time, and they must allow tracks to be purchased in a free format (which could be in addition to a non-free format). If there is money to be made by changing some of these policies (like nearly every open source project we could always use more money) then maybe there's reason to consider revising it -- but without some profit-sharing from the UOMS there's not much reason for us to do so. Revising this policy may get some anger from those music stores that have taken a chance on free software and free formats and have either been integrated or want to be integrated into some of these players. And I wouldn't blame them. So even with profit-sharing, it may be a no-go. (This doesn't mean it couldn't be provided as a plugin, instead of living in our source tree.)
openSUSE doesn't have mp3 support (fluendo+gstreamer) out of the box anymore does it? That would be one major problem - since I assume the Ubuntu store wouldn't sell OGG Vorbis or Flac - or perhaps even wav?
As far as anybody currently knows/guesses, the UOMS is really just a front for Amazon's MP3 store, and will carry MP3s. Maybe this will change or is wrong, but remarks Canonical has made in the past suggest it. Amazon also has their (DRMed) video-on-demand service and there's no reason to think that Canonical wouldn't want a piece of that pie too. Remember that Ubuntu is by far the most popular "switch" distro for people switching to Linux from Windows. Many of those people may not really care about open formats or even open source, as opposed to a platform where they aren't infected with viruses every three days. That may be Canonical's real target.
It would also be a bit problematic to promote and support a competitor of openSUSE.
So I'd say Ubuntu music store should be a no-go - unless it provides a significant advantage over other options that I'm not aware of.
But generally speaking I wouldn't mind it if openSUSE shipped integration with a for-profit, non free software/free culture related music store - as long as it offered music in formats supported by openSUSE out of the box, without DRM and doesn't belong to a competitor of openSUSE.
Check out the Magnatune stores in Amarok and Rhythmbox :-) --Jeff