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Linux Mint Diverting Banshee Revenue

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-their-cut dept.

LinuxScribe writes "According Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre, the popular Linux Mint distribution has changed the Amazon.com affiliate code for the Banshee music player so that Mint, not Canonical or the GNOME Foundation, will receive the revenue from MP3 sales through Banshee. Though a trivial amount of money ($3.41 in November 2011), Linux Mint's actions still raise the question: how should revenue be shared between upstream and downstream FLOSS projects?"

9 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Simple by Kjella · · Score: 5, Funny

    A dollar for me, one for you, one for me, one for.... oh well, here's 41 cents at least.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  2. Re:Find a better case for the discussion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A petty and small minded internet debate about software freedom? That's unpossible!

  3. They deserve it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux Mint 12 made GNOME3 usable. They deserve the $3.41.

    1. Re:They deserve it by kestasjk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As long as $0.27 goes to X.Org, those guys do great work.

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    2. Re:They deserve it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wayland is the way of the future.

      It has futuristic things like:
      * No network transparency!
      * Client side window decorations! This will offer the following futuristic features:
          * Every toolkit providing subtly different window decorations
          * Hung applications have immovable windows which get in the way and make life suck, like other popular operating systems
          * Impossible to use a decoration free tiling window manager to maximize screenspace
          * Impossible to use a window manager which adds useful extra window decorations and functions
      * And apparently, endless arguments about how copy/paste should work.

      But hey, at least it will provide a much needed performance boost for those of us still stuck on a Sun 3/60. Also, the .1ms latency introduced by a compositing window manager has really been bugging me recently.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:They deserve it by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not in the project's scope - Wayland is a display server; it makes sure that crap in memory buffers wind up on the screen in the correct order. You can always run an X server to get your network transparency (this is, after all, how Wayland is first going to be used).

      Sigh. No. Wayland's stated goal is to replace X. See for instance talks by the main authors about "Life after X". People are now making toolkits that target Wayland directly. History shows that if network transparency is not built into a windowing syatem from the beginning then it will suck. Dodging the issue by claiming it is not within the scope will not make the final result suck any less.

      Not necessaroly

      How did you work that out?

      Hung applications have immovable windows which get in the way and make life suck, like other popular operating systems

      Use your brain. If applications are responsible for decorating windows and therefore generating their own move/iconify requests, then a hung application won't respond. Just like hoe huing applications have immovable windows on OSX and Windows.

      Impossible to use a decoration free tiling window manager to maximize screenspace
      Impossible to use a window manager which adds useful extra window decorations and functions

      [citation needed]

      Again use your brain. If the application draws the decorations, how will the window manager augment them or completely change them without resorting to awful bodgery?

      Clipboard functionality is not trivial to implement in a robust and interoperable fashion. Copying and pasting is, for the time being, still hacked and duct-taped together under all major Unix desktops.

      [citation needed]

      Actually, you're talking rubbish. I have implemented copy/paste in xlib which interoperates with every program and datatype I tested it with. The X11 copy/paste mechanism is actually really sensible and well designed. It goes something like this:

      Prog 1: I have the clipboard!
      Prog 2: I want to paste.
      Prog 1: Well, I can offer you this list of datatypes which are now mostly MIME types
      Prog 2: Excellent. I'll have image/jpeg, please.
      Prog 1: OK, then. Here you go.

      That's basically it. There are some minor wrinkles, like the "here you go" part having a mechanism for chunking the data so the server doesn't have to hold it all, and programs don't have to do special things to avoid hanging with large pastes over slow networks. But basically, it's simple, robust and effective. It's also sufficiently flexible that XDnD was added without any server or API changes, just using existing mechanisms. And it's also sufficiently flexible to allow the sort of persistent clipboards which exist on other operating systems, which work as follows:

      Prog 1: I have the clipboard. ... same negotiation as above ...
      Clipboard manager: Gimme everything.
      Prog 1: OK.
      Clipboard manager: I have the clipboard! I can offer ALL THESE datatypes...

      Again, simple, ffective and robust.

      It's going to bring internal overhead to a minimum, by letting the kernel manage the hardware, take care of double-buffering and minimize the amount of work needed to actually draw anything - have you ever actually tried to write an X application?

      Yes. I've spent more time messing around with Xlib than with toolkits.

      You could also try taking a look at smspillaz's blog, where he regularly pulls his hair out over some brain-dead functionality or unexpected race-condition and deadlocks caused by X..

      That's curious. Given that X11 is single threaded, I wonder how he gets race conditions. I've never found one.

      Oh, and it's still not possible to get vsync working on a multi-monitor setup (and not even all single-monitor setups) under X.

      Works for me. The problem with more than one monitor is when they run at different refresh rates. There's nothing inherent in X which makes it any le

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  4. Re:Find a better case for the discussion by icebraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This has nothing to do with software freedom. It's not a question of whether Mint should have the right to do it, but whether they are jerks or not by doing it.

    --
    Dilbert RSS feed
  5. Re:Let the users choose... by gigne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I had mod points...

    "Thanks for running Banshee... From time to time online transactions generate a small amount of commission.
    Where would you like any proceeds to go to:
          [ ] Canonical
          [ ] Mint
          [X] Cancer Research Charity
          [ ] A.N Other Charity
    "

    --
    Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
  6. Nothing really by ewanm89 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Okay, lets simplify this for all that don't want to read the articles.
    Banshee's own link is dead so Canonical replaced it with their own in Ubuntu.
    When Linux MINT saw this in the changelogs while repackaging, they did the same thing replacing it with their own.

    I'm sure both would change this back if Banshee upstream started accepting donations again.