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

Mozilla-based?

[eMartin]

Right after I opened it, I noticed the column header control, and that the popup menus look more like the Firefox ones than the Windows native ones, so I checked Songbird's directory, and yes, it appears that it is Mozilla-based.

Now, maybe that's common knowledge, but it's the first I've heard of it, and I think it's worth mentioning. Especially since talk of cross platform porting is.

Re:Mozilla-based?

[jalefkowit]

It's actually a pretty significant milestone for Mozilla because Songbird (AFAIK) is the first major product released that is built on the XULRunner platform.

XULRunner is exactly what it sounds like -- a small runtime to allow deployment of XUL-based applications on machines that may not have Firefox installed. Think of it as a JRE for XUL.

Until XULRunner, there was no practical way to build full-fledged apps using Mozilla tech that didn't run inside one of their products (Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Seamonkey) because that was the only way to get access to a XUL interpreter. Songbird is an interesting demo of how XULRunner gets you beyond that.

Proxy settings

[nullvector]

I didnt see a menu for proxy settings in the app. Might be helpful for those who are at work right now.

You can add the following lines into your config.js in the Songbird directory.

pref("network.proxy.http", "type proxy here in quotes");
pref("network.proxy.http_port", YOURPROXYPORT);
pref("network.proxy.type", 1);

Of course, replace the port and proxy values, and you're in. Its based on firefox, so I just got the settings from the Firefox config and changed from user_pref() to pref().

Re:iTunes, DRM-ridden?!

[LightningBolt!]

Only on slashdot can iTunes be equalled to Windows Media Player...

OK, here we go...

Get your facts straight:

A very good idea.

files encoded from your own CDs do NOT have any DRM in them. Only tunes bought from the built-in on-line music store have DRM.

True.

iTunes is a player/ripped/jukebox/music store program.

Windows Media Player is a player/ripper/jukebox/music store program.

You DO NOT NEED to buy DRM tunes online, you do not even need an internet connection (although it comes in handy for the CDDB feature when ripping your own CDs).

Also true of Windows Media Player. Like iTunes, Windows Media Player 10 will rip your CD's to mp3, with no DRM.

UseFree.org/drm -- list of DRM-free music sites

[UseFree.org]

Here's a list of sites that sell DRM-free music by independent artists:

UseFree.org/drm

Songbird works with most if not all of these sites, and thus makes it easier than ever to break our dependency on RIAA's music and the cancerous DRM technology that it is pushing.

Re:DRM Ridden?

[velgor]

Um, not only does Apple make it a point of telling you to back up your music to other media, but they will also allow you to re-download your library (on a one-time only basis) should something catastrophic happen. I've recently lost my backups and a quick email to Apple had me downloading my purchased tracks within a day.