New Enemy-Canonical? 2

Posted by JD 02/20/2011 at 19:00

Sometimes companies do slimy things. It is usually because they didn’t think through the decision and I suspect Canonical simply didn’t think thru this decision before doing it.

Think again, Canonical.

BTW, Canonical puts together and markets the Ubuntu distribution of the Linux operating system. I have 15+ Ubuntu systems running here – most are servers. Ubuntu is based on FLOSS superheros Debian and Gnome and thousands of other FLOSS project teams, like Banshee. I don’t want to downplay what Canonical has done for Linux and usability, but the Debian guys do a tremendous amount of completely free work that is the base of Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions.

Amazon Affiliate

Banshee is a popular audio player on Linux. Banshee has an Amazon MP3 Music affiliate key embedded in their program so MP3 purchases made by users through that interface give them a little finders’ fee. This is common practice in open source software. Firefox earned millions of dollars last year from Google doing this.

Think again, Canonical.

Big Money

Banshee earned less than $3100 last year from this affiliate program. Further, the Banshee developers give all that money to the Gnome foundation – another critical FLOSS software project that almost every Linux distribution makes use of. Canonical decided to change that affiliate code in the Banshee version released with Ubuntu so that Canonical keeps 75% of the money and passes on 25% to Banshee. Uh … sorry … Canonical. Didn’t your mother teach you that stealing is wrong?

Think again, Canonical.

Ask and Negotiate First

Canonical, if you had contacted the Banshee guys and worked out an agreement, I bet that some win-win solution could be found. Sure, your distribution of Banshee as the default music player will certainly increase the number of users and probably increase the amount of cash the affiliate program makes.

Canonical. You are acting like Facebook and Apple and Microsoft. Stop it.

With the new Debian Squeeze release and Mint-Linux, Ubuntu users have viable alternatives. I hope that Canonical/Ubuntu rethinks this stealing and comes up with a published revenue sharing model that works for all FLOSS projects they distribute. Hummmmm. That has me thinking …

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  1. JD 02/21/2011 at 07:07

    More news. Canonical bid to profit from Mono app fails

    Basically, 2 options were provided by Ubuntu:

    1. Disable automatic Amazon store code.
    2. Share 75%/25% with Canonical taking more.

    The Banshee developers voted for option 1. So, if you use Banshee, be certain to enable the Amazon code so that team can make a little sustaining cash.

    Because Banshee is based on Mono (a MS.NET clone), it will never be installed on my systems. Not a fan of Mono here, but I’m happy that others have a choice.

    There are a group of packages that add tracking to Ubuntu. These can easily be removed. unity-asset-pool and geoclue-ubuntu-geoip seem to be key, but there are others.

  2. JD 02/26/2011 at 20:51

    Seems that Canonical has a new offer to the Banshee team I would advice them to accept it and pray they don’t change it again.

    Canonical – I don’t like mono. Don’t want it. Don’t care what you do with Banshee since I’ll never use it and will always de-install it from all systems I build.

    Was getting the free Banshee software not enough for you that you also need to steal the teams money? You are stealing, BTW. If you ask the Banshee team and they say you can take 75% of the money, then you aren’t stealing. You need to ask.

    I bet your mothers are proud.