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Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a problem with this. They're lucky that Canonical is giving them anything. As with anything else in free software, an individual is free to get in there and change the Amazon affiliate code and redistribute the modified software, and there's no obligation to give any part of that revenue to any other party, including the original author of the software.

Canonical would be losing a significant stream of revenue by switching to Banshee as the default music player in Ubuntu without doing something to recuperate the revenue they've heretofore derived from their stores in Rhythmbox. Banshee is going to end up making more out of this anyway as Ubuntu's new default player, and if you don't like the cash going to Canonical, you can download a build elsewhere or patch the source yourself so that the original affiliate code is restored.

People have to have money to function, even in free software.

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I agree Canonical's behavior doesn't seem out-of-line.

The difference between this and Apple's App store policy is that anyone create an alternative and anyone can load an alternative once they get distribution.

The comment section certainly gave me pause - it seems someone has a lot of bad feelings towards Ubuntu.

As I understand, Red Hat is larger, profitable business that has paid for a lot Gnome development (Wikipedia say Red Hat: 87.25 million net income, 3,200 employees, Canonical: $30 million net income, 350+ employees, pretty exactly one tenth the side of Red Hat).

Great but somehow the integration effort put into Canonical's distribution creates a considerably more usable system that has a good deal more traction. If, hypothetically, Canonical is "leaching", then it should really, really easy to put together a superior distribution to Ubuntu. Somehow no one has done that.

The packaging for most mono based packages are community driven. I bet that they didn't pay a dime to get a readily packaged software. There's no integration effort (except for maybe their 'branding' efforts, see their tries to differentiate in some places of the desktop, e.g. the notification area). None at all.

Comparing Apple (asking for a share of the profit! people make on their platform) with a company picking a product that donates to a non-profit foundation and changing the rules (for that product, btw. We're talking about a single decision, for a single product. No 'It's always been part of the terms of use' discussion, no 'It's the same for everyone' treatment) is kinda sad.

There's no AppStore(tm) here. Apple's not even remotely connected to this change.

As I commented in the other thread: We're talking about significant sums for Gnome maybe, not really for Canonical imo [1].

Ignoring that:

1) They back down on their own previous decision.

2) They add nothing of value and change the affiliate code that gives money to a non-profit. It's not like they needed to spend _any_ kind of effort providing banshee..

Sorry, I know business is about making money. I doubt that this is in any way necessary though businesswise (yes, this is completely arbitrary and not backed except for the numbers given in the link). I find it very bad from an ethical point of view. This lack of income might be directly affecting things like 'hire a gnome administrator', 'sponsor awesome developers to join a conference/hackfest'.

1: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.h...

This is part of the way free software works. If you don't want people to change your affiliate code, make the Amazon Store module proprietary and say no one can use it if they change the affiliate code.

I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales. I'm certainly not going to fault them for attempting to retain it after switching to a new default music player, they give a lot of stuff out for free and people have to make money somehow. End users don't buy many extra support contracts like BigCorp does, and Ubuntu targets end users much more than BigCorp.

The 25% cut could easily equal old revenue numbers as Ubuntu has a big installed base and would be trotting Banshee out in front of all of its users by default, which is lots more users and exposure.

Canonical's code is almost all open-source and the money supports them as well. I don't think the GNOME Foundation is a more worthy recipient. Canonical is one of the only vendors that takes desktop Linux seriously and I am happy to see them get some money to help out in those endeavors.

I partly agree. Free software works that way, that is: It allows this. And that's good. It's the reason why I care about it and I guess lots of other people feel the same way.

That you _can_ do things doesn't mean that it's nice or morally okay.

Looking at the numbers: Yes, I don't know what Canonical needs or not. If it makes a dent. I hope that I clearly marked this parts of my opinion as nothing but guesswork. Looking at the numbers the banshee project made public I still stand to my claim though and feel that this - so far - is not money you need to tap into as a company.

Regarding the switch: You seem to imply that this is kind of a nice thing. As if Canonical was 'allowing' banshee to be the default player. You indicate that this is a kind of 'benefit'. I'd say that the users just wanted that music player and Canonical (or, the Ubuntu project) listened [1], [2], [3]. Providing a music player of their users' choice is not a nice gesture where they help out a weird, unknown & tiny project, they are choosing a product that was available (although optionally) on their platform for a long time as a new default to suit their business needs already.

Again: In my world, they are already profiting from the banshee project, ignoring Amazon sales. Integrating Ubuntu One sales was a (fine, great, understandable) business decision. Implying that they can change a 'buy here and you make Amazon donate to Gnome' (yes, the wording is obviously not neutral) plugin, because they are nice enough to distribute the banshee product as a default media player in Ubuntu is outragous in my world.

Edit: Just stumbled upon this part of your answer: 'I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales.'

This is mightily misleading and misrepresenting my post. I'm not sure if you don't know or if that is a mistake, but Ubuntu/Canonical DO (potentially) already get money from banshee users. Their own store is integrated in banshee as well [4] and the decision that they backed off from [5] was in fact that they wanted to ship only their own plugin. Which would've been fine. With that decision users by default would've been forced to

a) buy using Ubuntu One (100% to Canonical) or

b) buy elsewhere, possibly using the disabled by default Amazon extension, which might donate to the Gnome Foundation.

They changed their route and I have a hard time understanding it (mind you, again, not from a business perspective. If you like to tack the Greed Badge on your shirt, and probably you need to as a company, this is fine. If you want to have code monkeys working for you for free however, this might be the wrong way to take).

1: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2073/

2: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/9761/

3: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11731/

4: http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/banshee-extension-ubuntu...

5: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-o...

I wasn't aware that Ubuntu One was integrated into Banshee. Thanks for informing me of that.

I guess I just don't see the moral conundrum you're talking about. Isn't it better to ship with Amazon, replace the affiliate code, and promise at least some proceeds from the sale to GF rather than just leaving it out altogether? It seems to serve the needs of everyone that way -- Banshee still gets some cash, users get access to Amazon's store right off the bat, and Canonical isn't concerned about all their profit from affiliate sales disappearing. Why is this bad?

I understand that some people preferred Banshee to Rhythmbox (I do too, for the record), but I also don't see how that changes things. Ubuntu is not taking from anyone, and any person is free to download a copy of Banshee with the affiliate code intact.

This may be a good PR opportunity for someone who wants to support OSS -- maybe Google or Amazon could announce that they'll match the affiliate bonuses going to Canonical and send them to the EFF or GF or other foundation. Also, it may be nice if Ubuntu would offer a non-default package with the original code intact.

However, I don't see a problem or anything wrong with what's happening here. I just don't see it. Ubuntu is increasing the exposure of Banshee and its potential affiliate revenues, persons are free to revert to the old affiliate code if they choose to do so, Canonical doesn't have to worry about the lost affiliate bonuses, and users are getting an all-around better music player in a way that works out for everyone.

The Banshee developers chose to give their Amazon plugin away and should not have expected to make any substantial amount of money off of it under those circumstances. Anyone is and always has been free to change all of the code, including the affiliate, and the Banshee developers released the Amazon plugin with full knowledge that that was OK and allowed. Some even saw this coming, as the commenter on gburt.blogspot.com predicted such a controversy back in December.

I'm just hard pressed to see any ethical conundrum here. Banshee is giving away the store plugin and its code; if Novell wanted to make money off of Banshee, they should have left the store under a restrictive license. Banshee's developers have always understood that anyone is free to replace the affiliate code. Canonical wants to distribute Banshee by default, but doesn't want to take a potentially serious loss of income in order to do so. Users want programs that come with full functionality, regardless of politics or developer infighting. The solution announced here seems like a great way to keep all of these people happy; Canonical will be forwarding a substantial portion of the substantially increased affiliate revenues to the beneficiary in the standalone Banshee distribution, they are playing well within the rules established by Banshee/Novell and the copyright licenses of the code, and users will have the options they want without having to jump through needless hoops. Where's the downside?

Agreed. This seems like win win all around. If you want Banshee to take more of the cake, patch in their affiliate code or throw your own affiliate code in there if you want ... actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea ...

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