Cicero had the right idea.........."Cui bono"
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Apr 04, 2010 6:44 AM EDT |
In a case like this, follow the money trail. I personally do not use Songbird, but my daughter does. I feel this is a sad betrayal of principles on several levels, but it will take considerable digging to find the underlying reasons for this action.......But always, always.....who profits ? Certainly not Linux and its users but somewhere, somehow, there will be excellent fiscal reasons or pressures placed on the Songbird developers to cease support for Linux. It is just a matter of finding it. |
| dinotrac Apr 04, 2010 6:52 AM EDT |
What betrayal? Had there been some promise that Songbird would always support Linux? If not, there's no betrayal at all because anybody with active neurons should know that companies have to take care of business, and that means going where the money is. Betrayal would require some reasonable basis for believing that they would do something else. |
| Ridcully Apr 04, 2010 7:47 AM EDT |
Hi Dinotrac..........betrayal in the sense of leaving in the lurch all those Linux users who were depending on Songbird.......That's for a start. Perhaps I am a purist, but I also see betrayal of ethics......or perhaps not, if money is all that is important. I'm old fashioned in that I always look for a sense of honour and integrity......but hey, this is business: honour, trust and integrity all get put to one side if profit is threatened. No...you are quite right, Songbird never entered into a contract to support Linux and therefore one should expect the worst possible result.......Is Songbird released as open source under the GPL or a proprietary binary ? |
| dinotrac Apr 04, 2010 11:48 AM EDT |
Money is all that important when you are a business.
It goes to the very essence of what a business is, and taking care of its stakeholders: customers, to be sure, but also investors and employees. And it's not all that simple. Was honor and integrity shoved aside? What commitment had been made to Linux users? Were there any actual paying Linux customers? How about honoring obligations to people who feed their families by working for you? Etc. I understand very well the notion of being between a rock and a hard place. It forces you to make choices and live with the choices you make. It doesn't make you unethical. |
| Ridcully Apr 04, 2010 6:21 PM EDT |
I do believe dinotrac, you are thoroughly enjoying picking holes in my "bland statements". :-) Oh sure.......for a business to survive there has to be a positive cash flow and we certainly agree on that. As regards "not that simple", I have already agreed that there was no committment to the Linux customers, but return with "how can you be certain that honour and integrity was not shoved aside". I certainly can't be certain. And I think you might be casting the debate net a little wider than needed. Choices may not be unethical, nor should the maker of the choice be tarred with the same brush either, however those choices may well produce results that can be labelled unethical, even if the choice was made for the best intentions; and commercial choices often appear very unethical from the consumer's perspective. Anyway, this is getting so off track, let's agree to drop it. I cannot find the item again, but I saw it yesterday and it was a comment made on the removal of Songbird support that was very telling. The writer expressed amazement at the direction Songbird has chosen to go in that it is now trying to break into a Windows and Apple "market" that is dominated already by other software packages, especially ones owned by Microsoft and Apple. As the writer said, if Songbird had stayed with Linux, it virtually had open house and more or less had the chance to be THE software application in the Linux world. But perhaps it paid nothing. Who knows ? Edit: Mea Culpa.......with capitals. :-) .....it is a remark by Sander_Marechal on the other thread, and I thought it was pretty good. |
| dinotrac Apr 04, 2010 6:48 PM EDT |
I can't be sure. It's why I asked what promises had been made. I don't actually care enough about Songbird to do the research. |
| jdixon Apr 04, 2010 7:49 PM EDT |
> Is Songbird released as open source under the GPL or a proprietary binary ? http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Docs/Licensing_FAQ It looks like the majority of the code, but perhaps not all, is GPL'ed. If that doesn't change, it should be possible to maintain a community version for Linux, if there's enough interest. |
| caitlyn Apr 05, 2010 2:00 PM EDT |
There is a community version called lyrebird. That will go on for Linux. I'm 100% with dinotrac on this one. I spent five miserable months doing mainly Windows support (plus Netware) because, in this economy, someone wanted to pay me to do that and my usual Linux/UNIX gigs had all but disappeared. So, I could stick by the kind of "principles" Ridcully advocates or buy groceries, pay for my old ferrets' vet care and pay off my car. Guess what I did? Right now I'm focused on Linux again, which is a good thing. Having said that, like everyone else, I have bills to pay and that means I'll do what it takes to make money. A business is made up of individuals with bills to pay too. |
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