Ubuntu primes music service

mybroadband.co.za

17 points·RK··6 comments

Yes, we're partnering with 7Digital.

We'll be looking to see if there are any simple changes we can make to the codec installation experience when mp3's are played the first time, but no major changes from how it works in Ubuntu 9.10.

Initially this will only work in Rythymbox, but we're making a GTK widget that should make it easy for other players to embed the music store as well. You can see up to the minute code here: https://edge.launchpad.net/libubuntuone and follow along with progress here: https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/lucid-ubu... .

At the moment we've got music purchasing basically working and are cranking along on getting downloading finished, and building packages. Hopefully there will be something people can start playing with in the Alpha3 release of Ubuntu 10.04.

Will it be available worldwide or only in a few countries (I see 15 on 7digital.com)?

This would be nice. As Canonical is more or less London-based, I'd rather expect them to partner with 7Digital than with Amazon or Apple, as was suggested.

There's a problem though: if they stick to shipping Ubuntu without MP3 codecs (and I can't see how they would legally get around that), how are they going to offer a reasonable out-of-the-box experience for this music service?

That hasn't been a problem since a few releases, the audio player just asks the user if he wants to install the codec(this is the case with Amarok on Kubuntu, the behaviour should be similar with whatever player is used on Ubuntu).

Rhytmbox / Totem are the default media players on Ubuntu, and yes, an installation dialogue pops up when a codec has to be installed.

I like this idea. Are there similar follow-on plans for video? It looks like 7Digital is currently only music.

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