Songbird Flies Today

fr1kk writes to tell us that with the recent advent of a preview version for the new open source response to iTunes, Songbird, BoingBoing has taken a few minutes to interview team lead Rob Lord. While this program may be a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes and Windows Media Player platforms it is still only a Windows release. The good news is that by being open source that will (hopefully) not last very long. The Songbird site appears to be swamped right now, but there are several different mirrors available to download the client.

Comments

Not invented yet?

[mccalli]

From the article: Songbird can connect to any a la carte media store -- downloadable music, radio, video, P2P networks, and classes of services that haven't been created yet.

It can connect to classes of service that haven't been invented yet? Impressive. I shall go away and ponder the transdimensional time-travelling inplications of this statement. Over a large brandy.

Cheers,
Ian

wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

it's always nice to see someone doing what's been done before, only prettier, with a GPL, no support and random crashes.

We Need an Extension

[jgbishop]

Is there a SongSomething extension to rename this program? I prefer Songfox to Songbird...

In re: "from the free-as-a-bird dept."

[Caspian]

In re: 'from the free-as-a-bird dept."
Attn: Robert Commander Taco Malda, Jeff Hemos Bates

I represent the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, on retainer for Apple Corps d.b.a. Apple Records. Our clients hold international legal and commercial rights to the recording Free As A Bird.

Your unauthorized distribution of lyrics to this performance constitute, at a minimum, a violation of U.S.C. 666-69-3117 and of the provisions on distribution laid out in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). You are thus ordered to cease and desist the distribution of these and any other Apple Corps lyrics in your "dept" headings. Our firm has not ruled out further legal action to enforce our clients' Intellectual Property rights.

Signed,

Robert Cheatham, Esq.
Dewey, Cheatham and Howe

Microsoft should hire these guys!

[Deep Fried Geekboy]

A clone of iTunes which doesn't interoperate with the iTunes store, play any of my DRM'd music, work on a Mac or under Linux, or interface with my iPod. Its only selling point being vaporware plugins.

Bzzt! Next!