Recently the Canonical Online Services team, led by Cristian Parrino, has been in discussions with the Banshee project to coordinate a suitable revenue share for the built-in Amazon store. Unfortunately, there were a few crossed wires, but a call today helped to clarify the position.
For clarity, Cristian wanted to pass on the plan for Ubuntu 11.04 to the Ubuntu community, so here is a copy of the email he shared with the Banshee core developers after the call today:
Thanks again for the call, your participation and understanding is very much appreciated.
As discussed, I wanted to follow up with the plan I outlined on the call – and reiterate my apologies and responsibility for a situation that has resulted in the worst outcome for everyone, including putting the Banshee team in an awkward position. As such:
- In Ubuntu 11.04, Banshee will have both the AmazonMP3 and Ubuntu One music stores turned on by default.
- We will contribute 25% of the revenue from the AmazonMP3 store to the GNOME Foundation.
- We will also also start contributing 25% of revenue from the Ubuntu One Music Store on both Banshee and Rhythmbox, to the GNOME Foundation.
Recognizing that it is important to not only bring choice to Ubuntu users, but to also generate revenue to continue our investment in Ubuntu, and to ensure we can contribute effectively to the GNOME Foundation – we believe this plan fairly addresses the interests of all parties.
Article contributed by Jono Bacon
February 24th, 2011 at 21:26:26 GMT+0000
I believe openSUSE and other projects presently shipping Banshee without reworking the built-in codes contribute 100% of revenue received from the Amazon store to the Gnome foundation.
Just to clarify what the baseline of the existing situation is, since it was not in your article.
Best -F
February 25th, 2011 at 18:22:40 GMT+0000
@Federico Lucifredi:
Except that Canonical already has a competing service and including Banshee’s Amazon store is going to cut into existing Canonical revenue. Non of the options are pretty, but this is the most beneficial option they can offer GNOME that has a chance of not hurting Canonical.
March 11th, 2011 at 11:34:12 GMT+0000
How nice. I wonder why they developed that . And now that they did it why don’t they make it better so that it will be able to really compete. I think that is the real fear here … that Ubuntu 1 ain’t as good as the amazon store. I just hope that this will teach them to stop reinventing wheals.
I actually want canonical to get hurt for bad investments.
February 24th, 2011 at 23:02:26 GMT+0000
I believe that the Red Cross doesn’t charge for any medical services…
Canonical can’t ever win can they!
February 27th, 2011 at 15:56:41 GMT+0000
That is pretty evil, in the google sense of the word.
February 28th, 2011 at 00:18:40 GMT+0000
How about you guys make this article more accurate and share with the class how the original banshee gave 100% to the Gnome Foundation… Wouldn’t want to tell a lie of omission now would we? This is exactly why I use straight Debian… This kind of crap.
March 1st, 2011 at 13:22:36 GMT+0000
it’s good to read that canonical also thinks about genereating revenue – Canonical gives us so much with Ubuntu and we all are using it for free – but nobody can expect a Company behind a great product NOT also thinking about revenues – this is what saves the future of the Company and the product.
I can’t understand your complaints at all …
March 30th, 2011 at 17:31:55 GMT+0000
oh, please. Robbing $35k from a non-for-profit is not “thinking about revenue”, it is simply plain idiocy.