Spotify Releases a Linux-Only Client Library

f0rk writes "Spotify, a popular music streaming service, has just recently released libspotify. An official, binary-only, only for subscribers, library to 'enable and inspire you to build some really cool stuff.' The first release only has support for x86-32 Linux, the only major platform Spotify does not run on. It looks like the Spotify team is trying to be nice to the Linux community and hope someone will use their restricted binary-only library to write a Linux client."

Comments

wine?

[meow27]

So to run this in windows I'm gonna have to use Wine on windows? Thats just massed up

Re:wine?

[Nazlfrag]

From their help page:

On what platforms can I use Spotify?
        Mac OS X 10.4 or later and Windows XP or later. You can also run Spotify in Wine on Linux.

So it looks like you can already run it in windows on Wine. Seriously though, at least they seem to be catering to us 1%, more than what most do. We should be thanking them for this token effort, keep applying pressure to open it sure but at least they bothered to test on wine and make a blob.

Slashvertisement

[QuantumG]

Yup, I've never heard of Spotify and I can't imagine why I'd be interested in this. But hey, I always love it with people release "binary only" libraries. They typically provide a nice big fat header file and a .so file. Sometimes they even strip the .so file, that's what I like to call "a challenge". Today I am not sufficiently bored to reverse engineer this crap, but I'm sure someone, who knows what Spotify is and actually gives a shit, will be. How hard something is to reverse engineer is determined by three things:

1) Armoring
2) Symbols
3) Relocation information

When it comes to Linux stuff, no-one ever does armoring, so we might as well not even think about that. All the interesting symbols for this library have come from the header file.. but ELF binaries leak lots of symbols, even when you strip them, so yeah, no problem there. Finally, relocation information, makes the so called "hard problem" of reverse engineering, separating code from data, pretty easy.. and .so files require you to provide them.

So I don't know why they bother. If there's secrets you're trying to hide from developers by not giving out source code, you're just failing.

Re:Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching Idiocracy and posting on Slashdot at the same time is, umm, spooky.

There you go with that fag talk, again.

Re:Slashvertisement

[walshy007]

Yes, because often you can release code in binary form that you're not allowed to release in source form. That happens, umm, never.

err.. that can and does happen, depending on licensing agreements, you can buy licenses to use some libraries in your product X, but if you then released source to your product AND proprietary library so you could compile it, company you bought it off would rip you to shreds.

Prime example being punkbuster for q3, had to be removed for the source distribution because punkbuster library isn't owned by ID software but by some anti-cheating company

English: Do you speak it?

[1u3hr]

... the only major platform Spotify do not run on. It looks like the Spotify team is trying to be nice to the Linux community and hope some one will use there restricted binary-only library...

No, it's not life-or-death, but it IS AN EDITOR'S FUCKING JOB TO NOTICE AND FIX THINGS LIKE THIS.

Re:Despotify

[xkcd150]

I think this is Spotify's response to Despotify.

When Despotify was released, they had a full office going "f*ck, our business is screwed".

They could have gone the route of lawyers and trying to silence or stopping the project, but instead they just fixed the security issues that came up, and let the open source project be for a while.

And now they release this. They're trying to reach out to the open source community, but their hands are tied because of where their money's coming from.

Same reasons they have to put geographic restrictions on the music in the first place.

x86-only

[ManiaX Killerian]

This is getting bloody ridiculous. Everyone releases a piece of binary crap for 32bit linux and that's - OK, are you saying your code is so crappy you can't recompile it at least for x86_64 (which is starting to get comparable in size to the ix86 crowd). Heck, our stuff (which is about 300MB of source) got recompiled for x86_64 in 6 hours (took two-three compilations and some tweaking, the diff was less than 30k).

So, please, people that release binary stuff for Linux, etc., take a bit of time, compile for something else, or you'll start looking really bad.

Re:Why linux will never be mainstream.

[koiransuklaa]

I didn't get the same impression from the comments at all, so decided to look closer:

You guys are all way too busy arguing about how the library is not GPL.

"all"... I found no posts saying this. I did see two posts complaining about binary-only, but there are other possible reasons for that and.

None of you have the right to dictate which license software you had no part in writing should be distributed.

Again, finding it hard to locate the posts this refers to.

You have to ... get over the illusion that the GPL somehow removes rights from the original author.

Wow. where does this come from? I have no idea.

I just love how so many of you automatically assume that they must have stolen GPL code in there.

Zero, it seems. There was one guy who would find it funny if there was GPL code in there.

For all the groupthink accusations you spouted, the only evidence of groupthink that I see here is your moderation: +5 for whining based on nothing at all?