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Songbird Drops Linux Support
An anonymous reader writes "The Songbird developers have announced that they will no longer support Songbird in Linux. This is really a shocking announcement, as Songbird has its roots in open source. Songbird will, however, continue to be available for Windows and Mac."
In their blog post on the subject, the developers said, "We remain loyal to Linux and the ideology it represents, so we will maintain a version of the software for use by our Songbird engineers who develop on the Linux platform. We’ll make that version available to the community. We will keep Linux build bots and host the Linux builds on the developer wiki. That said, those builds will not be tested and may not pick up new features developed by Songbird’s team."
Not once in TFA or the summary does it say what Songbird does.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I've tried Songbird for Ubuntu each time a new release came out and frankly, it was a horrible experience.
I loved the layout of the software, but having to wait damn near a half hour (or more) each time I'd start it up to reindex all my music was annoying, to say the least.
I've ended up just sticking with Rhythmbox, which is OK,but I really did prefer the Songbird layout.
There's a housing development not far from where I live that has draconian rules about "community involvement". In order to own property there, it is necessary to spend time on the board or doing board-approved activities. They have immaculate lawns.
I own my own property here, and I have no connection to any third party except the bank and the government. My lawn is a mess, but I welcome anyone who would like to mow it.
Isn't the spirit of Free Software about everyone pitching in and helping each other freely? Or did I misunderstand freedom to mean freedom for others to do work for me for free?
I see nothing in Songbird's announcement that is negative in any way.
XMMS 1.x is no longer supported and I hate the client/server model used in 2.x Amarok won't install without KDE and Rhythmbox is nearly unusable for my needs. Granted I am running FreeBSD. VLC is ok for most of my needs but I've been using Grooveshark lately to bolster up my music collection.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Linux is open source. Open source is not Linux.
Its not really that shocking.
So far on Linux desktop there have been three excelent iTunes like media players - Rhythmbox, Banshee and Amarok (last one mostly after features not gui). All three players excels in different ways, but what's important - they just work and I doubt we need more iTunes type clones in ui and functionality for Linux platform.
I know that Songbird guys are those positively mad people who did huge piece of dirty work to port Gstreamer to Windows and OS X and it shows what's their main priorities are. And that's fine, because Windows and Mac need a nice open source music player too (and ported Gstreamer framework of course).
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
so many of the old school unix types like me having migrated to OS-X
Troll harder.
Not long before the Windows and Mac development stops, too. This software failed to gain traction.
I currently use Herrie where I formerly used XMMS and Audacious. It is a light textmode player that does everything I want. In fact, I originally wrote a textmode frontend for XMMS/Audacious simply because it was more convenient to use that way. Later it turned out to have other uses, for example controlling my media machine via ssh from my work computer.
My main problem with most music player software today is the idea of a 'media library'. In order to play a file, you first have to put it in the library. I understand such a database has its benefits, but to me it is unnecessary complication of a simple operation. In fact, I do have a custom script for managing music files burnt to DVDs, but in the unix spirit I like to keep thing separate, so I am free to use different players.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If there was ever a music player on Linux that was worse than the worst versions of Amarok, it's Songbird. Nice ideas, but it never ever did work correctly for me, and it wasn't for lack of memory or processing power. I kept installing it and removing it from time to time to see how it was going.
It's like they never tried getting it to perform correctly on Linux. Oh well.
Maybe it works better on Windows, but I'll never know since I never use that unless I absolutely have to.
--
BMO
Especially with so many of the old school unix types like me having migrated to OS-X
I call Shenanigans! A real old school Unix user would have:
a) Capitalized the 'U' merely out of respect
b) Waxed nostalgically about Unix (at least 3 full paragraphs)
c) Included "rm -SCO" or "sudo fuck SCO" in their post
As for me, an old school Unix user, I switched to Mac because it was the best computer I could steal. The old lady I took it from still thinks her toaster is the slowest screen saver ever.
Old school Unix? MacOS? You must be joking?
I say that as an old SunOS user that ignores his mini that sits under the desk.
I might want to steal some Mac apps but that's about it. Really, I would be more interested in stealing some Win apps.
MacOS is for grannies that can't be trusted not to browse sites they've been told to stay away from.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Out of curiosity I dowloaded songbird just now and tried to install on my Windows 7 machine. Got a nice dialog saying "We don't support this OS. You can try, but things may not work properly." So you don't support Linux, and you don't support the latest version of Windows (or, I'm willing to bet, Vista)... Why not just call yourself a Mac product and be done with it?
N.B. I am a Windows 7 user and it did say when I installed that Windows 7 was not supported.
I dropped iTunes out of my home setup a while back and thought I've give Songbird a go. I've been running it for about 4 months now and I have to say, in IMO, it is one aweful piece of software which I rarely use now. Barring the crashes (ack. NB above) its usability is pretty poor.
I hope others have hade better experiences with it.
I fail to see why so many people using gnome hate anything that uses QT/kde libraries with such a passion. By doing so you are seriously limiting yourself and overlooking some nice software.
Amarok, k3b, k9copy (only decent dvd ripper I've found on linux suitable for recommending to others), konqueror (meh as a web browser but great for viewing local filesystem and sftp'ing with other machines, like a swiss army knife), kino for converting dv cam footage. etc.
The recent trend over the last few years for everyone to default to gnome and nobody having used any qt stuff seems strange to me, I always have both sets of libraries installed and use the best tool for the job.
You're an idiot. What have you done to help them support Linux? I'm guessing nothing.
If you don't like the app, fine, but don't act like it's their job to support the platforms you use. It's your job.
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Desktop development of Linux has stagnated over the last 2 years. We have not seen anything but more fragmentation of the underlying building blocks and several high profile vendors have all said the same things. Adobe said the sound system sucks, Nvidia and ATI have complaints about X.Org windowing systems and in general while I love what Ubuntu has done, it "Appears" that they've dominated the direction desktop Linux is taking lately. I used to be impressed with every new build and the features it has brought, the last few releases bring nothing but yawns and maybe a new skin or some flashy effects, but nobody is addressing the more pressing issues of standards for underlying systems. I understand people want something customizable, but in the end you have to have standards so people who make you all these fun custom things can know what to expect when building them.